american sonnet
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who put a christmas light in my spirit?
american as i can be tonight,
the ember still looks fake as i near it.
someone thought it funny to hit the light.
want to get in a dark elevator
with two guys you have never met?  i don't. 
will the doors slide before you hit the floor?
you find out when your floor arrives.  i won't.
i brace myself against a moving wall
on the first day of christmas, riding home.
brace a body once kind now six foot tall
six vertical days for the christmas gnome.
american as i can be tonight, 
the ember seems fake as a christmas light. 

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by daniel brummel, 1999