Bringing Home the Tree

Rosemary Sullivan
From:   Blue Panic. Black Moss Press, 1991, p 53

In the park the magnolia explode
like Christmas crackers
pretending to be snow.
The children carry bright wishes
to Santa sweating in his red suit.
I'm laughing because Joseph's pacing
in his manger.

We're bringing home the tree.
Ten feel shuffling beneath green fir,
a centipede pacing the streets
of the city of thunder.

Claudia in the lead,
slipping off the cliff of adolescence,
star on our top-most branch.
Then Margarita, little girt-man
in her pinned-up jeans.
And La Paz, our furtive bird peering
for a moment from her dark cover.

They're shouting at the tops of their voices
Tio Chiche! Tio Chiche!
Uncle "little-rattle in the baby carriage."
They're leading you home.

You're the clown they've waited for.
You're the best game.

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Rosemary Sullivan's works copyright © to the author.