Ten days after Christmas,
a six-foot-four woman in heels
clops in front of me from
the convenience store bathroom,
her face sweats tree lights
with her candy cane eyes
as the scent of pine
lingers in the pop aisle.
Red tights blend thighs and cheeks
into a sack of presents now
leaning beside her man of five-five
who tosses another scratcher
into his pile of losers.

“Any Winners?” she asks in an elfish pitch.

“Not yet,” he responds while
smirking to the twenty-something
hairball behind the counter,
“If there’s anything else you want
from the store baby, you can have it.”

After shrieking, she clops back
to the snack aisle for the family-size
bag of cookies and cream puppy chow.

He doesn’t care if
the stack gets higher or
the line behind him gets longer,
I think he knows this might
be all his luck in the new year.

– Will Neuenfeldt