It sat downstairs on the air hockey table,
its shedding needled branches, its copper wire arms.
With care, our mother draped its false twigs in silver
garlands, two for a dollar on the clearance rack,
and the ornaments–her mother’s, long dead–
we cradled in our palms like baby Jesus might have
been held, our non-savior swathed in hay in the barn-crib, safe
and human.

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Leila Chatti, Linebreak

Tagged: beauty, christmas poem, Jesus, Leila Chatti poem, Linebreak, lyric poem, muslim christmas, poetry