Monday, 17 October 2005

• These two were included in the inaugural issue of a new online literary journal, apt.
  

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  it's hard to celebrate christmas

  in the center of a crime scene,

  but we do it every year,

  in the living room,

  gathered around a tree

  that has been dead for several months

  and has been spray-painted green.

  
  

  one year, we all forced smiles

  and jumped at the ringing phone

  when one of us was missing.

  
  

  another year,

  we all burst into tears

  upon the unwrapping

  of a tiny pair of jeans.

  
  

  last year was uneventful,

  though something small and dark  
  

  was smoldering beneath the surface

  in the manner of a discarded cigarette

  about to ignite a forest fire.

  
  

  gathering around the piano,

  or near the fire built once a year for the occasion,

  or in a strained semi-circle with one parent on each end,

  we do our best to rise above the individual sins

  and make merry.

   

  ________________________________________________________________-

   

   

  credit union

   

  it's called a family transfer,

  when you bid the bank to slide money from your account

  into one with a negative balance

  belonging to your sister.

  
  

  it's the tax you pay

  for having traded your dreams,

  for having thick skin,

  for your guilty conscience.

  
  

  where is the family transfer

  which can carry these across the miles:

  
  

  a healthy mind,

  a healthy body,

  an unbroken heart?

  
  

  if the bank could transfer these,

  you would raise your yoke

  and plow the uninspiring fields

  with the force of 200 oxen.

  
   

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