Christmas come
The circus will be on soon,
grey-nosed clowns, grey-spangled liberty horses
galloping in a circle. But first we stand
to watch the Queen. All except
Uncle Laurie.
Sandwiched between Aunt Annie
and Grandma, he sits in new-that-morning slippers,
odd-buttoned cardie puckered over
a stomachful of rum-soaked
plum pudding.
His blue-bagged collar,
starched and studded, sinks under folds of skin,
weathered raw by a life-shift
tending crucibles of molten steel
beyond the sun.
Hanging jaw and sagging lip
tremble in a daydream snore of gold watch days
in a little greenhouse, overwatering
ripe tomatoes under the shadow of
impenetrable hedge.