The reindeer stepped out of the box. Purple tinsel swayed from its antlers and a collar of sleigh bells jingled around its neck. “What language do you speak?” I said. The reindeer regarded me and smacked its tongue. “What do you miss the most?” it said. I did not want to seem ungrateful. I have witnessed brutal death in broad daylight, inconsolable shrieks of children in the throes of evacuation. There is love in my life, a head which rests against my breast, a waterfall we slip behind. “I miss to be near you,” I said.
Henry Finch’s poetry appears in About Place Journal, Midwest Quarterly Review, North American Review, jubilat, and Massachusetts Review, among other journals. His translations of Stephan Roll’s poetry (Romania) appear in Apofenie.
Featured Image Credit: Morgaine Baumann
