Page 17 - Contrast1991Fall

Smoldering Cinders

His marble eyes,
of blue glanced
at me over the top
of the green and red gift wrapped package.
Crossed with confusion,

and wonder,
these eyes moved back down to the gift,

then to the other ones,
surrounding him like stonehenge.

A smile stretched
across my face, as I helped
him pull apart the difficultly
wrapped presents. The scent of smoldering

cinders in the fireplace,
that hadn't quite gone out from the night
before, and the ruffled sound of the Sinatra
album, with a scratch from each year, blended

together, along with my memory
of the past. No details of Grandpa's last
Christmas, or when I got my first bicycle,
just a feeling that smolders with the cinders,

and sings with Sinatra.
Something that my son, on his third Christmas,

is just beginning to know.
-Jason Spiotta

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