When it’s Christmas we’re all of us magi.
—Joseph Brodsky
A gaunt star leans out from the crown,
and along the skirt, a practiced randomness
of gifts grows like a moraine.
It bulges to excess
as we stack the rest. Our boy’s in bed.
Tapers stretch their resinous
legs on the tablecloth in deepening red.
And when he wakes, as he must,
to miracle, I’ll think of Herod
while he scours the many with a lust
for more. How some are taken.
How even he is just a guest.
Copyright © 2025 by Nicholas Friedman. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on November 27, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
