We're Too Poor This Christmas

We’re too poor this Christmas.
All we own is a breath,
long, tedious and green,
a piece of bunting, a futile chain.
We hang it between
two distant numbers on a clock.

And then as we look at it for long,
we get creative.
With a pair of lurid scissors, we chop
this decoration into hyphens;
we use the little lengths
to contrast the grotesque walls
of the rooms that occupy 
us.