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After the Christmas tree was straight in its stand

and topped with the weary, platinum-haired angel,

my father strung the colored lights

and left the rest to my brother and me.

We worked for perfection, arranging

tear-dropped shaped bulbs so no two colors

met side-by-side on a strand.

Each ornament lifted gently from its newspaper nest.

We hid the cracked, lusterless ones

far back in the branches.

Smoke from my parents' cigarettes

wrapped a haze around us as we worked.

Eyes closed, my mother lay on the sofa

with a sick headache. The cabinet door

slapped over and over as my father

poured another glass from the brown bottle,

then fell asleep in his recliner.

Finished, the two of us made ice cream sundaes,

and sat in our child-sized rockers,

watching Lassie rescue Timmy

who had fallen deep inside a well.