a bruised reed honking like a goose at the thin beginning of a saxophone; the wick of a star still smouldering above a town famous for its paranormal astronomy; a midwife cow; a shrine of straw, and all of us linked in together locked down in houses far apart asking ourselves “what child is this inside my chest who still fears the night and loneliness?” it’s forever happening— our growing up our growing into a higher order understanding of the fragile smouldering in the sky that guides us to the light we share. We’re here apart. It’s Christmas 2020. It’s hard but not unhappy. Things never turn out, thank God, the way our pouting little imaginations insist they should.