Not quite Christmas and we’re home
to celebrate waiting and feeling our age –
adult children with heavy assumptions
and heads full of Glühwein. We know
that the star is just spent gas and cinnamon
and, in this way, is still a miracle. Sparrows
pick over the giblets and, in the dining room,
this year’s Stollen sits fruitful and lovely,
a fat little Jesus asleep on the tray. So
much weight on the season, the light
misunderstood by the darkness and life
an open arrival. What makes any of us loveable?
We fuck in the doorway, this threshold,
bold as brass and mistletoe-berried,
gripping frame and hips and
words and flesh and climbing towards
that glorious pivot, a balance of coming
and going, run through with immaculate
advent. So much weight on the fertile periods,
the rituals – it used to be that god opened
and closed wombs like glittering doors –
and all because the zygotic event is
an im/possible some/where that
will save us. Afterwards, we brew strong
coffee and drink it black, turn over
the cups and welcome the grinds,
read them for what they are.
______________
Samuel Tongue's collections include Sacrifice Zones (Red Squirrel, 2020) and three
pamphlets: The Nakedness of the Fathers (Broken Sleep, 2022), Stitch (Tapsalteerie,
2018), Hauling-Out (Eyewear, 2016). Poems have appeared in different places,
including Magma, Poetry Wales, Finished Creatures, and Banshee Lit; some have been
translated into Arabic, Latvian, and Estonian.