Friday, 15 July 2011

The Present

(third moment)


We didn’t have a chimney.

It presented a problem.

I wanted a chimney

To prove the con was on.

They said to me Santa would come

Down the chimney,

Of course they were lying

There was no santa even if there was a chimney

I was sitting in the lounge

And told my father about the chimney

“There won’t be a santa , because there isn’t one”

Council houses, I knew, had no chimney.

Boring fables on TV

And Christmas came with its glitter

At least there were the cartoons

Dad tapped me. “You have a present. Go see.”

In our beaten up little flat

On the mat of the corridor

A parcel, too big for the letter box

Leaned up on the white door

Twenty years later I bought him a hat

Put it on his head and beamed

His white beard gleaming away

He was still Santa Claus after all.


By Ali. A. Naqvi

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