The Christ child has come announcing 

the saddest news: Your Memaw has attained 

a new poverty. She will only warrant you one peek, 

a glimpse into the vacant yard of December. 

A photo album half empty, save for a few pictures

of Papaw’s old goats and hope of resurrection.

The last summer he was alive, 

you hauled leftover watermelon through the gate 

to a rusted tub surrounded in dirt, a gift

for his hooved choir of aimless joy. Lazy

and full of fruit, you skimped across crabgrass

fantasizing about fireworks and what you’d kill 

with a pellet gun if you had a clean shot.

In the sickly amber of this living room,

doesn’t everything seem different?

Little by little, the pink sweetness of beauty thins.

Gospel singers sing and no one listens.

You carried your Papaw like chewed up rinds

to a hole in the ground while it rained.

Maybe God’s up in the sky with a big old shiny rifle,

picking off what you love right and left.