From my bedroom I expect to see him, something holly
green skittering across the yard.  The wind has picked up
 
and our bonfire is halting from ember to flame,
but a fox startles the man away, red-wind grinding
 
close to the ground, intent for a Christmas mouse, hungry
for anything shadowy and sweet to the tongue.  
 
It may have been Father Christmas that sent the young prince,
persuaded by the fire, his antlers a peace offering to shadows
 
that had missed their mark.  I have everything now, all
that I ever wanted, still the green man blows his cold breath up
 
to the window.  Still the crunching of hooves reassures me,
not quite a snow angel, the forest-brown message
 
of him. He breaks last year’s nettles with his hooves, dancing
alone on the longest night on earth.
					

My father, who dies on the longest night of the year, returns
a month later, somehow fifty three years old, a wild-eyed charmer,
to tell me that the dead aren’t worrying about the living, that
 
each snowflake falling is a wish spoken before it hits the earth.
I am half awake, I rub my eyes. He stamps the porch, begging
for a decent  cup of coffee, saying he has no rest for all those wishes,
 
no sleep for all those mad-rushes to pull us safely 
to the curb. I am skeptical.  I hand him his coffee:  milk, no sugar.
He has that sheepish grin, that wolf-sure twinkle. Tell me
 
you aren’t disappointed dad, show me how you know 
it’s all ok.  He guffaws his coffee. I would sleep like the dead. 
Instead, I have dervish-toddlers, toothless men.  Mostly I have you.
 
Lighten up, they say, winter’s my busy season.  I blink, his cup
is empty, I was about to make us tea. His shoes wait by his empty bed,
Goodwill is coming next month.  Each day I walk through a forest
 
with somebody’s name carved on a tree.  All winter, during long 
feathery nights,  wishes swirl round the house, falling
on the neighborhood, on the chimneys while we sleep.