No room at the inn
All the animals in the animal basket
wanted to go: Stegosaurus,
polar bears, Lego dog.
We let in a camel and a donkey
only on sufferance. They watched
from the back, blocked by pandas.
The crib was crammed: shoe-box
size, wooden, cotton wool snow
glued to the tin-foiled top. Our desert
in the dining room was cold.
Stacks of straw kept everyone
warm but because we wouldn’t do wisps
we lost baby Jesus early on.
The angel with a ‘gloria’ sash lashed
to the stable door was meant to be
ever-descending. We spent Christmas
knocking her off on the way
to the kitchen and having to rehang
her chipped china robe.
Each night we said sleep tight, Lego dog,
sleep tight, panda family, sleep tight,
Joseph and Mary, but when
we’d climbed the wooden hill
disaster struck our Bethlehem: the cat –
crib-fancier, straw-lover, jealous, always,
of religious icons – pushed
herself in, knocked everyone out.
Katherine Stansfield’s first collection, Playing House, was published by Seren in 2014. Her poems have appeared in various publications, including The Guardian online poem of the week, Magma and Poetry Wales. Blog: http://katherinestansfield.blogspot.it/
promised an advent
we reached out for new days
said mary.it wasn’t
a question of comfort
&john came through
in tumult a repeat
of doors
opening
he locked his steps behind him
said
grass will cover
the old & pissed on.glitter
distracts & distracts
we don’t see
the rusty times
i have
no doubt
he said turning off
lights & carrying
candles
this will be
a final strategy to hold
& fuck
our bastard heads.lie
low
& let them play in sand
Reuben Woolley has been published in Tears in the Fence, The Lighthouse Literary Journal, The Interpreter’s House (forthcoming) and Ink Sweat and Tears among others. A collection, the king is dead, 2014, a chapbook, dying notes, 2015. Runner-up: Overton Poetry Pamphlet competition and the Erbacce Poetry Prize, both in 2015.