I turn again to old photographs,
the upstairs of our house
finally finished, floored and plastered,
where we lived then, the furniture
newlyweds could then afford pushed aside
to make room for a tree and toys,
to turn a barely furnished room
into Christmas.
My father and grandfather
bracket me, father smiling in a way
he rarely does today,
my wasted grandfather fat and vital
in his Christmas shirt, a cotton print
of pine cones and vague snowlike shapes.
Both sit cross-legged and intense,
assembling train track,
a transformer, freight cars,
obscure pieces of tiny towns and stations
littering the floor and table-top.
And here, then, is the only thing
that matters now: that they are pleased,
with themselves, with each other, and with me.