CHRISTMAS DINNER AT CHURCH THE HAPPY GIANT DINES

[jim turner]

At first he repels you. A frisson of fear
runs like voltage along your spine.
By any standard of national television
or periodical, he is surely ugly.
That he is black and wears an assortment
of shabby clothes in layers–one of them
an animal smell–reassures nothing.
Nor his size! He is huge. Ponderous!
Images flash of river horse and blubber,
but he is iron–rusted, yes, but iron.
Its gray fringes a faded stocking cap.
Round, thick-featured face, not fat but swollen
flesh slitting, almost closing dark eyes.
Unshaven his scarred cheeks, chin, upper lip.
You think of him in darkness and shudder
again. Over waiting plates your hand shakes.

Suddenly you see that gap where two teeth
used to dwell and questions frown:
when did that, how did that happen?
You know you noticed because he grinned,
his great happy grin–because? Because
here is Christmas while winter waits outside;
here is warmth and food; here queue his peers
from mean old neighborhoods with hungry names.
Here the food is hot, and good, and smells
like the heaven his mama hymned about.

The urge–to ask what pain the rust has done
to that enduring iron, how it endures--
passes. There are journeys you will never take,
ancient boundaries you will never cross.

Not quite meeting his narrow eye,
from hesitant distance, you whisper,
"You’re welcome to more. There’s plenty."

Jim 2008

[hester_prynne]

Pure and simple...I love this, love reading it, feeling it, it's like I can be there.
Thank you for this powerful poem Jim.
H

[dadio]

Good solid poem.

There are journeys you will never take,
ancient boundaries you will never cross.

(I know)

[edsiejka]

Jim-

Real and to the point. A poem about something most of us avoid....the poor.