{"id":475,"date":"2011-12-25T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-25T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=475"},"modified":"2020-12-14T11:15:34","modified_gmt":"2020-12-14T11:15:34","slug":"the-first-day-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/the-first-day-of-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"The First Day of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Expat and the Angel Come to Lunch<\/span>

I had high hopes. I have prepared mutabel <\/span>
and labneh, Arabic bread, salad leaves <\/span>
from Saudi, fresh conversation. My English<\/span>

neighbour shares her views on lazy maids, <\/span>
her husband's job in small drill bits, the cost <\/span>
of water, whisky, gardeners on the take, <\/span>

manicures, pork scratchings, bikinis.<\/span>
The hour is long. Windborne sand coats <\/span>
the table, insinuates itself between our teeth. <\/span>

It's getting hard to speak or chew. At last<\/span>
she rises to her feet and clears her throat:<\/span>
She\u2019s a bit of a whizz she says finally, <\/span>

blinking desert from her eyes, at crafts, <\/span>
so, just in time for Christmas, here's a piece<\/span>
of home. She hopes we can be friends. <\/span>

When she's gone, I unwrap the gift:<\/span>
a wooden spoon festooned with tinsel,<\/span>
wire for wings, and bits of mop for hair.<\/span>

Day after day, the muezzin's call fragments <\/span>
across the wilderness of dust and cranes <\/span>
and minarets. The angel moults her glitter <\/span>

in the heat. I string her up inside the porch <\/span>
where I can be sure my friend will see her <\/span>
hanging mentalhealthupdate.com<\/a> when she takes her morning run.<\/span>



*Jacqueline Saphra<\/a><\/span> has won several awards including first prize in the Ledbury Poetry Competition. Her pamphlet, Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll Mamma was published by Flarestack in 2008. Her first full collection, The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (flipped eye) was developed with the support of the Arts Council of England and nominated for the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize 2011.<\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n


Mary (& Me)  <\/span>

No longer a Catholic, I abandon my search<\/span>
for the nativity in Antwerp Cathedral \u2013<\/span>
we\u2019re all virgins at birth. I cross the cobbles<\/span>

to the chipped votives of the Kathedraal Bar<\/span>
and consider Mary over a De Konicke.<\/span>
One December, I\u2019d played her in church,<\/span>
 <\/span>
clasped Jesus\u2019 plastic head to my bosom; <\/span>
he wept down my flat blue chest. <\/span>
Incense clings to my leopard print fur.<\/span>



*Katrina Naomi<\/a><\/span>'s first full collection 'The Girl with the Cactus Handshake' was shortlisted for the 2010 London New Poetry Award. Her most recent is 'Charlotte Bronte's Corset', published by the Bronte Society, after she was writer-in-residence at the Bronte Parsonage Museum. Katrina is from Margate and lives in south London. <\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Expat and the Angel Come to LunchI had high hopes. I have prepared mutabel and labneh, Arabic bread, salad leaves from Saudi, fresh conversation. My Englishneighbour shares her views on lazy maids, her husband's job in small drill bits, the cost of water, whisky, gardeners on the take, manicures, pork scratchings, bikinis.The hour is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-twelve-days-of-christmas-2011"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23931,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475\/revisions\/23931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}