Poem: November 30, 2019

Christmas Lists

Everyone is making their Christmas lists,
guidance to head off the possibility of
poorly-chosen gifts and the necessity of
post-Christmas returns and trips to the mall.

So in a way, our lists are a form of defining
ourselves and of knowing those for whom
we find ourselves shopping. Our Amazon
wishlists and Google Docs with hyperlinks
become a form of shorthand, a kindness,
we think, so that things go more smoothly,
so that our shared life is a little less stressful.

But so little of us can really find its way
onto a list, since I am more than some
passport wallet or fedora or sweater vest,
and you are more than a novel, earrings,
a scented oil diffuser or a Disney LEGO set.

At best we will find ourselves at Christmas
opening the simplest reflections of ourselves
because they don't sell the excitement you
feel the night before it snows, or something
to heal the ache I feel when children are left
alone. No stores stock their shelves with the
memories that we already cherish or the hopes
we can hardly define. Nothing mass-produced
and imported from China could speak to
the rich, strange, and complex mess of us.

But we make these lists to pass around, a
limited language to define ourselves, a
collection plate to simplify the giving.