Poetry by Brian C. Billings
Let’s skip the gifts this Christmas.
Oh, let the children have their boxes
and stockings and weeks of waiting;
they have innocence and energy.
The two of us have jobs.
Why worry once again about
the niceties of equivalent exchange
or dropping hints inside of stores?
How much bric-a-brac can we afford to hoard?
Cracking the ritual might hurt
but not so much as hemorrhaging
money and mind for months.
We’re neither one of us detectives.
I think we can agree upon what’s small
to mean the deepest feeling and allow
the credit cards a chance to cool.
I like a latte. So do you.
To be beyond eighteen should mean
cutting ties with those tyrannical lists
our mothers taught us we should make.
Gifts are hard. Leave penance for the cards.
Brian C. Billings is a professor of drama and English at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. His work has appeared in such journals as Ancient Paths, Antietam Review, Argestes, Confrontation, Evening Street Review, and Poems and Plays. Publishers for his scripts include Eldridge Publishing and Heuer Publishing.
