Kevin Always Christmas

For you,
everything was Christmas.
Piano bells around silence
in a song about stars
dotting the deep
of an evening in Paris or Silver Spring.

Every year something arrived in my mailbox, before during or after;
the timing unrelated to any mystery
you’d entered and explored
before emerging with that year’s
small parcel summation: 

*A still mountaintop. Hands warming themselves over a fire.
*A blue neon sign blinking over a snow-covered roof.
*Deep beauty in knowing we’re always, somehow, alone,
    while married to everything — the shared beauty
    of loneliness. A few years after, I cried. I do not

cry easily. Your absence felt sudden,
one dark January without your
silence-at-the-top-of-the-rebirth-of-night card.

I don’t want to throw anguish into the ether. We always
made it to the printer.

Hellos and goodbyes may be meaningless, friend.
I’ll see you at Veselka, a few days or weeks
after the new year. Our shoes will be cold and wet. New York
will make us feel happy,
and sort of small.

Looking for more heartfelt Christmas? Read on, dear friends, from hearts around the world who’ve known sorrow, joy, wonder, silence, and beauty in this season.

• On Patrol – Christmas Poetry
• The Twelve Suspects of Christmas – a Book Review
• The Christmas Rose – a Poem
• Asking Questions Christmas Edition – Positivity Corner
• Respites – Christmas Poetry
• Gingerbreading – My Favorite Things
• Holiday Delights – Poetry
• The Princess and the Pain – Christmas Fairy Tale
• Fireplace for Your Home – Christmas Essay
• Holes in the Stockings – Christmas Poetry

Mary Leary

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Mary Leary came up in a Navy family, opening her to diverse ways of seeing and being. She was particularly affected by three years in southern Spain in the early '70s. She is obsessed with sound, timing, and restraint. She used to present poetry with music and sounds. She was an early new wave/alt. DJ at WGTB in Georgetown and published (the) Infiltrator in Washington, D.C. as/before hardcore hit. She's currently obsessed with old school hip hop and trying to adjust to living in central Washington State. She has been published a lot in the past — more recently, with a piece in Baltimorology (Apathy Press, 2023).

Find more from Mary on Facebook and at (the) Infiltrator Magazine.

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