The Present

by Lisa Kelly

is very hard to determine
with any of our senses.
I am trying to live in its abstract noun –
a gift as the old joke goes,
but unwrapping
the sound of more bombs,
the rotting under rubble,
the bitter taste of politicians’ hypocrisy,
the sights of abject horror
touched upon in news reports
make the past or future, abstract nouns
we might live in more easily.

I have put up the Christmas tree.
I have draped it in fairy lights,
and dangled it with decorations
my children made when they were children.

I like to think that everyone has a past
that can make it to the future.
Underneath the tree, not one present –
just fallen pine needles.