Cash Only, No Returns - Dec 14 2023

 

Cash Only, No Returns

Dec 14 2023

The vacant lot

was surrounded on 4 sides

by Christmas lights

strung on sagging lines.

The old-fashioned kind,

with big filament bulbs

and lifeless colours.

The burnt-out ones

looking like missing teeth

in a strained smile;

the kind where the eyes

are dead giveaways.

The rest were dull with grime,

emitting

more heat than light.

Trees for sale

at the pop-up store

in the abandoned lot

the neighbours called an eyesore.

That every winter

seemed to materialize overnight;

a rough warming hut,

the same bleak mishmash

of multi-coloured lights.

Dirty snow

shovelled to the sides,

frozen

into hard irregular mounds.

Evergreens

wrapped tight enough to conceal

the broken branches

and bare spots.

Some already shedding needles

and turning to firewood.

A twitchy man

with a 5 o’clock shadow

and tobacco-stained teeth

is anxious to sell.

Cash only,

no returns.

He paces nervously.

Tugs his black woollen hat

down even tighter.

Steam rises

in the bone-chilling damp

as he tries to stay warm,

stomping his feet

and blowing on his hands.

Another man

is towing a small kid

too excited to stay still.

Who will choose the tree this year,

and was looking eagerly

for the biggest, of course.

Which won't fit

under the low ceiling

of the small house they rent.

Nevertheless, the man will buy it,

dragging it home

in the early winter darkness

through the sidewalk slush,

his impatient son

doing his best to help.

Couple feet off-the-top

and it'll be perfect

says the father to himself.

Turn the bare spot toward the wall, is all,

hang a bauble

on the broken branch.

And here's hoping

too many needles don’t drop

before the big day.

I can see how this might seem closer to a short story than a poem! Which is not the sort of thing the gate-keepers of academic poetry approve of. (They think it only qualifies if it hurts your head to read!)

I'm not sure what makes it a poem. The line breaks? The word choice? A certain distillation and compression? Perhaps that there's no fat, no unnecessary words. (Or is and are there?!!)

Or maybe just that I choose to call it a poem   . . . and that's good enough.