The Beauty of His Feet on Christmas Morning

                                                  (for Janos)

     

Outside the covers, beneath my lips.

Paper and bows from last night’s unwrapping

crushed into balls

on the carpet downstairs.

Stockings now emptied. 

Board games await the afternoon.

The coffee’s unmade, and his son sleeps

in his jeans. Rabbit tracks pock the snow

between townhouses. Spruce stand there

like shepherds, like the souls

of our beloved dead.

Possibly I have died, too. Another spent candle

among the ceramic nativity scene,

the donkey and cow

each missing their right ear.

The world glows. Daylight on his feet,

the gospel of snow. A rain of crumbs

where we sat late into the night, laughing

and eating Hungarian biscuits.

The poinsettia’s leaves. The silent guitar.

The delicate sculpture of his arch.

Amid the chaos and flurries—

holiness and champagne. These bared,

innocent flares. No one beating

at my doors. Only these

two stark winter birds. I begin again

at his shoreline.

-Shelley A. Leedahl