T’was The Night
Santa changes to red shorts and a tee
when he soars over Palm Beach, home
to old money and, sometimes,
that outrageous Donald Trump who dared
eat pizza on Emily Post’s lace bedspreads
and turn the place into a club for the
nouveau riche and The Beach Boys, for god’s sake.
Comb over Donald writes Santa each year,
asks for his hair back, never realizing
that most things, once gone, rarely return.
Santa won’t fit in here, with his shorts
mail-ordered by Mrs. Claus from Walmart
and the ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ in cheap glitter
on his tee reflecting the lights still
Morse Coding ‘buy me’ on Worth Avenue.
He only flew by to drop off lumped coal
at over-sized mansions facing gated
beaches locked to the unwashed public
before heading across the waterway
to where homeless men and women sleep deep
in dark parks, stomachs growling, dreaming
of magic, of the fat man on a sleigh
they vaguely remember from childhood.
Very skillfully wrought and (as usual for Pris) unpredictable and unsettling. Just the shot in the arm we need to bring us back to our senses this time of year.
Thanks for your comment, Eddie!