I saw you,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
that Christmas,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by the tree,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
wearing a plaid sweater<\/p>\n\n\n\n
your grandmother had given you<\/p>\n\n\n\n
two Christmas\u2019 before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The one your mother insisted<\/p>\n\n\n\n
you wear every Christmas since then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You looked contemplative and pensive,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
reflecting on the shiny<\/p>\n\n\n\n
red foil tinsel<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ornaments dangling<\/p>\n\n\n\n
from the plastic and metal frame<\/p>\n\n\n\n
that was made to resemble a tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I said hello,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and you nodded an agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat beside you,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
joining in on the meditative<\/p>\n\n\n\n
journey you had partaken in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We sat for an hour<\/p>\n\n\n\n
before my mother<\/p>\n\n\n\n
came over and told us<\/p>\n\n\n\n
that dinner was ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The family conclave was commencing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
its yearly ritual of niceties,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and commentaries on each other\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She smiled at you because you were younger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She smiled at me because I was older.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She smiled at us<\/p>\n\n\n\n
because she was trying<\/p>\n\n\n\n
to etch the image into her mind<\/p>\n\n\n\n
for latter retrieval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You made no motion to get up, and<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I chose not to disturb you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember you on that one Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We both sat there,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
with the blinking lights<\/p>\n\n\n\n
drowning in our eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The presents under the tree,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
like swollen, ripe, fruit, fallen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I saw you, that Christmas, by the tree, wearing a plaid sweater your grandmother had given you two Christmas\u2019 before. The one your mother insisted you wear every Christmas since then. You looked contemplative and pensive, reflecting on the shiny red foil tinsel ornaments dangling from the plastic and metal frame that was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dlflp","tag-dead-letters-for-living-people"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1021,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions\/1021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephmcabral.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}