Lug Nuts of Christmas

Christmas is as much about anticipation as anything else. We anticipate the miracle of the Savior’s birth. This poem is about opposing currents, the hyper-urgency of one person trying to get away, and the steady, patient anticipation of return. This is about tension, the flow & the undertow that goes with hope.

Lug Nuts of Christmas 

                 –my son, my son

Like a star in the sky

is the gleam of adolescent eye

a manful bigger badder     most buff

exponent of     I’ve got this

big black belch of diesel

and a stance so wide    Side mirrors

elbowing out and he’s into the world

on Kevlar tires    the thigh high

wonder of run-flat fine

I’m fine he says    buckled-in    pedal to metal

The Doppler shift    laughs at the threat

the snatch & catch of an airlift     God

hovering overhead     hoist-cable

& winch     an angler’s reel

for the bumper’s raw steel

Raw steel    my towheaded boy

the middle child     insists

he’s not been caught    but he has bought

the charade     where everyone turns

a blind eye to booze    as if buzz

is the law    A lone tear slips loose

onto his Hail Mary grenade

Your love

forces me

to lie

This is my son

walking away

let’s call it a holiday

assault    turn by twisting turn

a spin-out acceleration

of truth and lies

Home has a new feel     Small     How small

influence floats    amidst centuries of theologic rock

gargoyles & grace notes

And dust

Motes of hope drift & duck

guilt’s howl    to give up

on smoky prayers     the yule log just now

catches the swell

Watch with me

ash drifting down    settles around

a simple

song       and who knows how

it happens    My son’s lips    mouthing

familiar words    O come

O come    expose what he knows

not the star

but the tear

A note to the reader: In Susan Cowger’s poetry, extra spaces between words serve as the pauses that punctuation normally provides. Capital letters denote the beginning of a new sentence.

The featured image, “Paper Dove and Evergreens,” is courtesy of Lancia E. Smith and is used with her glad permission for Cultivating.

Susan Cowger

Poet and visual artist, Susan attends to image: water, sky, faces, flowers, and birds, oh the birds,
even rocks and pebbles, wherever beauty heals and anoints. Beauty ever provides when life feels
bereft. Susan has traveled to marvelous places worldwide and worked in Kenya with Spring of
Hope International. Now Susan and husband Dana live in Spokane WA. Married 47 years, they
have four children and 22 grandchildren (and yes, she finds that number rather shocking too).

susancowger.com