An Angel Came To Our House

We were posing for Christmas Eve pictures
when the angel came to our house.

My sister holds her new Sears Roebuck
guitar across her lap as visions of
Joan Baez bliss dance. Her hair
freshly ironed, her face freshly
scrubbed, her jammies freshly
starched and pressed and new.
She is our soft fortress
from which no man may enter

My brother and I wear ski pajamas
because we receive the same gifts and
we wear the same clothes and
we answer for each other
when called by name or blame.
My brother plays a dime store ukulele
because my sister plays guitar
and he has learned to play
both sides of the name and blame game.

Our mother takes the pictures and
all the Eve is the sound of Perry Como’s
“Papa Loves Mambo” on the record player
and our mother shouting,
            “Cheese and peas”,
with the Camel unfiltered dangling as
rain gutter icicle from her lower lip.

We never heard the angel’s horn
above the Camel and RCA Victor din. 

At Christmas morning mass
the pews were alive with talk of angels.
         Angels on the rooftops
proclaiming the coming on frozen horns.
         Angels on the rooftops
heralding the miracle on frozen lips.
         Angels on the rooftops
handing out gift bag salvation and grace
from compartments unswadled
          from frozen wings.

And we sat in pews as icicle angels.
And we wore new cotton sweaters
and new woolen mittens and smiled
as sure as saved to show
an angel had come to our house
bringing tidings of great joy
and we had not been listening.

On the walk home from church
trudging souls among the
shoveled and salvation.

My sister in shoes designed to leave
no tell-tale steps to and fro.

My brother and I sucking snow
from the weave of new woolen mittens.
Our mother, a Christmas Camel
clung to her rain gutter lip
with promise of a long, cold winter
            without Papa, without dancing.
All of us thinking, not speaking,
           “Perry Como has damned us all".eus all”.