T'was the Week After New Years...

By Nichole Giles

Dear reader, in case you decide to believe that the following story is anything other than fiction, I feel inclined to assure you that it is simply a daydream—my own wishful thinking.

T’was the week after New Years
And all through the town
The neighbors, they scrambled
To take Christmas down.

Big piles of Santa’s, wreaths,
Garlands, and bows
All shoved into boxes
Next to socks with huge toes.

The children high-tailed it
To play with their friends
Just in time,
See, their mother was at her wit’s end.

And Father with his duct tape,
And Mom ready to snap.
Considered the floor
For a short little nap—

When in through the door
There came such a racket,
Mom sprung from the floor yelling,
Hang up your jacket!

Away through the kitchen
She flew like a flash.
“Now, stomp off your boots.
Muddy shoes bring in trash.”

Moonlight on the crust
Of the filthy black snow
Reminds her,
Three months more of winter to go

When what to a frustrated soul
Should appear,
But a dirty white mail truck
Through ice quite severe.

With a spunky young driver
Who was bundled up thick,
And coughing and wheezing
As though he was sick.

More rapid than snow melts in heat,
Mother ran.
Bare feet, and no coat,
With the mail key in hand.

“Now Mailman,” she said—
As her breath he could see—
“Please give me a hint,
Is there something for me?”

He rifled the letters
And gave her a stack.
Then he winked and he smiled
Before turning his back.

And then with a sigh,
Mother turned to go in
And she ran through the door
Happy face and big grin.

The contract she’d waited upon
Had arrived.
The publisher’s rejection pile
Her book survived.

The clean up would wait,
And she felt like a sinner,
But this night the family
Would go out to dinner.

This New Year,
Her story would be bound and glued.
And that mother,
She felt like a righteous young dude.

But she wouldn’t forget,
Those who helped her this far.
She stopped to click send,
Then she got in the car.

When her friends read her thanks,
All her joy they did hear.
She said,
“I will be throwing a party this year!”