christmas truck

by tree riesener

that year the tree 

redolent of dark damp forest

with flickering lights through the long darkness

intensified endless waiting of a physical intensity

if I ripped open all the windows and doors

of the advent calendar could I collapse time

rich with ginger cinnamon frankincense myrrh

cakes preserved in damp rum-soaked cloth

promised a faraway sugar-sated, drunken feast

I tore small unseen holes 

in the few visible forbidden packages from distant aunts

then one evening my father

little to do with our unimportant children’s lives

came home with a small narrow cardboard box

said this is to help you wait 

for a little girl who loved knives baseball ponies

a wind-up truck you could zip across the room

a special gift from daddy’s hands

meant I had been seen heard meant I was

for many years

first in my old wooden toy chest

then in a carved keepsake box

along with a feather from an angel’s wing

a lace bag of lavender 

a grandmother’s silver thimble

a rock from the bay of fundy

my wedding ring

the sturdy little truck survived

now the gears underneath my half are locked with rust

but the wheels still turn 

examples of how we age in parts

the driver printed on the yellow metal 

endlessly holds the steering wheel to nowhere

on the dark roadbed of my desk

the other half in a brass-trimmed oak box

has been underground for many years

I slipped it 

filled with a rolled-up good-bye 

into his pocket 

before they pulled the crocheted afghan up

screwed the lid down

he left my life 

pretty much as he had lived in it

unaware of who I was or anything I needed

except for that one time

but we’re forever bound by the truck like an icon

a two-way mirror a ball of string for the labyrinth

a path running forward and backward

illumination in darkness and darkness in light

* * * * *

Tree Riesener is the author of Sleepers Awake, a collection of fiction, winner of the Eludia Award (Sowilo Press), The Hubble Cantos (Aldrich Press), EK (Cervena Barva Press) and Angel Fever, Triple No. 5, (Ravenna Press). Three previous chapbooks are Liminalog, Angel Poison and Inscapes. Her website is http://www.treeriesener.com. She is on Twitter and Facebook and loves to hear from readers.