Even before I reached down to touch -- an instinct -- ,
I already knew: gone. A moment before,
I was swirling down a river of mall shoppers,
funneled along by Christmas, jostled and pushed
against a wall, carols breaking around us
like ornaments -- such a power in the wallet,
a battery without which a man feels disconnected.
I turned and quickly tried to retrace my steps
past stores decked in holiday sausages, windows
with blouses, jeans splayed in lively shapes
like the penniless. I broke into a run, pushed
my way past the Ear Piercing Boutique, the Silver
Shoppe, the Mean Bean Coffee Store, everywhere
encountering faces vaguely familiar, like ghosts
of Christmases past. At Santa's Castle,
I saw parents lined up and holding children,
each child cupping the small candle of want
in its eyes. I passed all the gifts yet unbought,
names of stores glossy as aluminum,
until at last I dropped down tired on a bench,
put my face in my hands and let fatigue come.
Closing my eyes, I could hear the steady tromp
of feet all around, until, drowsy, I could almost
make one set walk back, and recall the street-
corner years back where my father had opened
the car door and helped me inside, and I had sat,
as the heater purred, in the car's front seat,
watching as out the frost-webbed window
as he turned to go buy one last gift, strolling
back toward the dim line of stores
until the snow erased his form.
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