After hours spent calling out, Next, please, fluorescent light paling their skin and making eyes water, at the end of their shift they go home to their quiet home, pet the big, gentle dog who greets them at the door, hang up their jacket and the handmade scarf that was their favorite gift, curl up in a chair with a borrowed book and a mug of tea—only heated water, only leaves and herbs, and by soft candlelight stretch into themselves, thankful, thankful, to not be who they served all day, those sad and desperate, ravenous shoppers with their naked needs.
Author Archives: Puff Of Smoke Poems
Boxing Day Lesson
This is how it’s done:
The children must be
stuffed into snowsuits, overheated,
dragged car to store to car to another store
until they learn to beg
for one more shiny thing,
one more bit of brightly colored plastic.
Some get there quickly. Other, stoic, stubborn children,
determined to daydream about dressing up the cat
or building forts from empty boxes
and ripped wrapping paper—these children take longer.
But they are, after all, only children—
in the end, each one succumbs
to heat and hunger and greed.
Then finally, finally, a grownup can take them
home again. Sighing over how spoiled
the children have become,
an adult can carry them home to
the naps and quiet they both needed
all along.
Six Word Saturday: December 28
Cozy daughter day, Little Women, popcorn.
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Windfall
Before dawn, a crowd filled the yard.
Herds of deer, quiet, feasting on windfalls—-
pears fallen in the side yard and
seven more deer beneath the apple tree
at the edge of the field
half-hidden by the barn.
Slow to startle,
they roused themselves, remembered to run
as sky brightened and doors opened,
lights came on, shovels and motors
began making all those noises.
They ran. Except for one small doe
who lingered, stubborn and in love with
apples in the snow.
Lights At Every Window
adorning trees and doorways,
staircases, banisters,
edged along the ceilings,
stretched out and glowing,
as all of us—
Evolved Pagans,
Recalcitrant Christians,
Faithful Followers,
the Uninvolved But Jolly,
and the
Perpetually Uncertain,
go forward, feeling our way for
the electric plug, the match to the candle,
the spark to the night,
mostly blind to each other,
but working at the important work:
Holding back the darkness, together.
The World Thick With Angels
These are the days thick with angels.
Here’s the tiny one from my childhood,
in her pale pink gown, silver wings chipped,
her painted plaster face fading but serene.
Here’s the handmade one on my mantle
dressed in green velvet, wings of soft white feathers,
her banner trimmed in gold, proclaiming hopefully—
Peace Be With You Always.
Here, three enormous plywood angels
adorn my neighbor’s yard, painted white,
bedecked with strings of lights and
caught mid-flight, wings and trumpets raised
announcing joy to the grey skies of my street.
And here, the most important angel,
invisible and vital—the one who steered
while you slid off the snowy country road
and into a field—a lovely field with no precipice,
no pond, no enormous tree in your path.
That one? Oh, that is my favorite angel.
Six Word Saturday: Dec. 21
Angel shapes ribbon through the cornfields.
Read more at Six Word Saturdays.
Meeting His Girlfriend
Mom, he said—there’s someone.
And he brought her to dinner,
which went exactly as you’d guess—
Nervous laughter,
many sidelong glances,
her fiddling with her hair,
her scarf, her phone, her fork,
barely eating.
What I really wanted
was to reach across the table
over the untouched food
kiss her forehead
and tell her to relax—
The judging is over, results are in:
that light in his eyes and his
happy, goofy grin
were all I needed to see.
Armor For The Morning
It began as such an ordinary day—-
She woke herself reaching, as usual,
for the armor, but pulled her hand back
Empty,
her head and heart suddenly filled
with this Advice, this Certainty:
Pain will always find you,
despite the shield. The armor is heavy,
so cumbersome to carry that you
wake already weary at the prospect
of strapping on all that cold silver
before breakfast.
Today, instead, make oatmeal
and fill yourself with warmth
no protection at all, only comfort.
Ships Across The Sea
At the darkest turn of the year,
choose lightness. Choose to believe in
their capable hands, each steering
the ship of their own life—
sometimes, far off across the sea
sometimes, near enough to signal
sometimes, pausing at your side
where you can watch together
the moon, the whales
and schools of tiny, iridescent fish
darting beneath your hulls,
close enough for you and the one on the other ship
to marvel together —
How the neon fish catch the moonlight
and pull it deep into the sea
far below the waves, into the quiet
where we have never been before.
Puff Of Smoke Poems 