Porcelain Santa
Someone must have tossed it from a car
and onto the sidewalk, here, where the bus comes—
the woman who works at Woolworth's
slips a chip of beard into her purse—
but God knows why they did it.
Maybe the last mailbox was filled with Belgium blocks,
or reinforced in a way that made the bat swing back
and shatter their rear window,
so they found something else to destroy.
Or a husband, whose mother just loved it,
never returned from his business in Guam.
Imagine that mock Statue of Liberty,
surrounded by palm trees on the postcard.
Or some poor drunk just lifted it from the bar,
as if it were a Guinness glass or a coaster,
and, somehow, in the middle of White Christmas,
just couldn’t bear the burden of bringing it home.
Art Information
- "Weatherworn Santa" © Steve Snodgrass; Creative Commons license.
Jim Robinson is a doctoral student in systematic theology at Fordham University. His primary interests are ecotheology, religious pluralism, and religion and literature. He received his MTS from Harvard Divinity School in 2013 and his BA from Drew University in 2011. His poems have appeared in Word Riot, Metazen, and The Wick.
