Traditions

Poem 1 (war)

And Lynn asked me, through the smoke and brief distance,
What do you want to do for Christmas?
and I could only think of how war and abandonment
are how my family always celebrated the holiday.
There was a river, and a road that wound along cliff faces,
guard rails glinting in their silver patchwork of scales.
Walking up to the river itself, peering around figures,
warmth of awe and admiration that poured from skins
cut the cold. As the skiff made landfall, George Washington
waved across the breadth, teeming with ice flows,
faces turned from the reenactment, pride dissipating
to nostalgia. My parent’s bodies herded me, gently,
towards the car, their faces flat, having experienced this
as a distraction, an airing.

1a. (the lies we tell our hearts, bodies)

I suggested we bake Christmas cookies.
I shared this same tradition with Alice one winter.
I was on break from college, enamored, and lonely.
I remember how soft her hips were, like Lynn’s,
but less graceful. By the Monday I was due back at work, and
in between smoking weed, Screwdrivers and mid-day fuckings,
we had decorated ninety-eight.