Sinterklaus
Jerry Sinterklaus knows:
when his family gathers
facts remain unstated.
Grandma has been dead years.
Aunt Margaret just had botox,
smiling with too-white teeth at
nobody in particular.
Uncle Martin didn’t show–
he still hasn’t paid his taxes in over a year.
Jerry’s got an ugly sweater, a bad haircut,
and a hangover.

Since there’s no more beer in the fridge,
Jerry gets out his canteen and sits
among the nutmeg and coffee smells
of cooking and drinks,
drinks
drinks
drinks
and slouches in his chair while the buzz hits
because Grandma used to slouch, too.
Jerry used to sit and trade pulls with Grandma
from her tarnished canteen while
they talked in hushed tones the way
soldiers do in deep brush.

John, the pimply nephew ferrets over
to ask if he’d like to play hide-and-seek.
Jerry mumbles a rainbow of language,
and Margaret’s smile teeters on the precipice
ready to fall off. Her teeth stay shining, though.
So white, whiteness that betrays
every gleaming indecency.

Grandma’s gone
and Jerry, slouched alone and a little drunk
pulls again to navigate the pitfalls and barbed wire
of his relative relatives
and the hidden knives
of nativity.