Christmas Eve

Oh sharp diamond, my mother. I could not count the cost of all your faces, your moods, that present that I lost. Sweet girl, my deathbed, my jewel-fingered lady, your portrait flicker'd all night by the bulbs of the tree.

face as calm as the moon over a mannered sea, presided at the family reunion. The twelve grandchildren you used to wear on your wrist. A three-month-old baby. A fat check you never wrote. The red-haired toddler who danced the twist.

Your aging daughters, each one a wife. Each one talking to the family cook. Each one avoiding your portrait, each one aching your life. Later, after the party, after the house went to bed, I sat up drinking the Christmas brandy, watching your picture, letting the tree move in and out of focus.

The bulbs vibrated. They were a halo over your forehead. Then there were a beehive, blue, yellow, green, red, each with its own juice, each hot and alive, stinging your face, but you did not move.

I continued to watch, forcing myself, waiting, inexhaustible. Thirty-five, I wanted your eyes, like the shadows of two small birds to change, but they I did not age. The smile that gathered me in, all wit, all charm, was invincible.

Hour after hour I looked at your face, but I could not pull the roots out of it. Then I watched how the sun hit your red sweater, your withered neck, your badly painted flesh pink skin.

You who led me by the nose, I saw you as you were. And I thought of your body as one thinks of murder. Then I said, maybe, maybe forgive me. And then I touched a present for the child.