A Spare Bird

There's not much of the month that's left
And not much of the year as well
Since time is the master of theft
And set to it's purpose pell-mell
Providing...dismal guarantees
Like mortality that is scary
With insufficient Christmas trees
Or nobody making merry.
Which is why we, on longer nights,
Slice off a piece of harvest time
And string up happy Christmas lights
To illuminate an English rhyme,
Sung over heaps of steaming chow
Surrounding...a sacrificial bird
That was, from Fall, preserved somehow
In a manner the F.D.A. preferred,
And in the kitchen there's a truce
Where men give their wives...an extra goose!