In the photograph, relatives have gathered
who gather now for funerals only.
But here they sit to share stories and food,
watching their children wrestle the wrapping
from small gifts.
My grandfather, now adrift
in time, face haloed in cigar smoke,
glasses giving back the flashbulb’s glare,
sits smiling at his brother Joe, now dead,
beside his younger brother Bill (now dead),
who sits, debonair, legs crossed,
behind a thick Hungarian mustache
in a dark suit and painted tie,
cigarette poised in portrait pose.
Bill sits beside my mother,
caught off-guard beside an empty chair
(the photographer’s) and very clearly tired
of this endless round of ritual visits,
her head resting on a braceleted arm, eyes shut.
And I am on her lap and am two,
face obscured by a package too big for me
and which grandfather will soon help open
with a pocketknife.
Everyone (save me)
holds drinks—Haller’s SRS neat
or ginger ale festooned with maraschino cherries,
hi-balls for the older kids.
About us, paper and presents lie thinly strewn,
for gifts were fewer and more modest then
though there were more of us.
like the clothing, is of another place
and time, unredeemable, long before Santa
gave way to Scotch and water, expensive gifts,
and funerals, when sentiment was unnecessary
and the trees held fragile blown balls,
frayed cords of painted lights, and paper chains
lengthening year by year.
Long ago,
when Christmas was an endless round of visitations
we thought would never end.