This is a persona poem in the voice of Santa Claus.
At the North Pole.
My wife sleeps tucked against my arm dreaming
of gifts I can't give her.
Palm trees, buckets of sand, and shells
she can hold against her ear, listening to a sea without ice.
She'll press her cheek against the window
until her skin turns white in a round patch she won't
let me kiss, waiting for neighbors who
never drive 1,000 miles north.
She claims the elves watch her undress.
I've seen her.
I've seen her stick needles through cracks in our bedroom
wall hoping to catch one drop of blood from their damn eyes.
Doesn't she hear them sneezing all night in their beds
above the barn, where they look at their stiff fingers,
unable to carve even their names?
I still get demanding letters in the winter,
and I write back, sorry.
I have nothing resembling dolls or tops.
What you really need are false teeth, a new cane, maybe,
and glasses so thick you'll at last
see your own hands tremble like mine
do, smoothing my wife's hair.
Outside I see my reindeers' antlers in the bare trees,
in the shadow.
Sometimes at the far edge of tundra I even see the herds
and wonder if Dancer remembers those years she was tame,
or if Blitzen still has the bell around his neck,
although he doesn't know why it rings.