Merry Christmas Darling
Tears each follicle
Exposes goosebumps
She lifts the Jewish holiday
Depression
Chanukah on Long Island
Step child holiday
With an electric menorah
Eight days a week of gifts
Still jealous of the gentile
Bombardment of presents
The refrain of
Jews killed Jesus
Filled my grade school taunts
The only Jew on the Long Island block
In 1958 no Dreidel songs
Karen’s vocal warmth
Wipes away
The bristling anxiety
Starvation death
Carves a pitted stomach ache
Conversational phrasing
Parsing each syllable
The Christmas cliché’s
Fly
Ms. Carpenter expunges
Bones knitting without pain
Corneas reflect
Lungs gulp
Fingertips sizzle
A thoughtless state
Level the playing field
For three minutes and five seconds
Space empties
Urging a still
Pausing a grief
Belching a spirit
Echoing a closure
Jesus wasn’t a carpenter.
Merry Christmas, Darling – The Carpenters – YouTube
Shut Down
Christmas Eve
Downs the city
Establishments locked.
Quiet streets resemble
Aftermath of a war.
Life is stilled.
“Merry Christmas” spoken to me
Feels hollow once a year.
As a Jew I’m not offended
It’s become a secular greeting.
Christmas day
Is Jewish 24 hours
Of Film binging
Chinese food leaps
No gifts please
Not even white elephants
Freely sharing gratitude to
To my sanity makers
Mailman
Times delivery
Housekeeper Gladys
Hair stylist-Mr. Lee
I treasure experiences
Possessions don’t have meaning
Except for playing
My Streisand
Record collection
And Eight-millimeter
Family history
Gut wrenching happiness
And don’t get me started
On New-Year’s eve
And resolutions.
yes, gut wrenching happiness!Happy Holidays
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I have an electric menorah
Sent from my iPhone
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