Fathers’s Xmas 1957
Not much better than ’56 –
English goose + trimmings,
apéro-time then
a bottle of BOAC red,
2 Mylanta for dessert
at least
in best company.
My Xmas 2012
Boxing Day and I was a drunk
singing to an empty park
in the age of Riesling,
Campari soda
chilling on the window sill
glorifying cold
austerity and the sweet
Empress who came for dinner.
Then we watched
Beastly in Bethelem or
something like it.
Not French enough
for any Front.
Got back to Paris
just in time
for an in-boxed Kaua’i Beach
Resort brochure.
I sent the runner out for snow,
sent mother a card of Monet’s daughter
une petite fille en fleur
wading through poppies
in a white bonnet
in a searing, sunny August
day in Giverny.
