Written as a set of instructions, this poem tells you how to get through the darkest month. The speaker's advice is oddly mixed: sink into childhood memory "like a bog man into the peat," drink and sing, then take your griefs, regrets and humiliations, dress them in red like Santa's helpers, and put them to work. The joke is dark but affectionate. Misery gets a costume and a job.
Then the tone slips. "The season of fresh starts / & the slaughter of innocents" sets cheer beside cruelty, as if the speaker can't forget that winter holidays carry grim history. Yet the poem keeps turning back to practical comforts: air holes in the pie crust, plenty of butter, sensible boots.
The mood is wry, tender and a little weary. By the end the speaker points outward, away from memory and regret, toward the night sky. Learning the names of the stars feels like a quiet, hopeful way to make the dark familiar.