Christmas Day, a free verse poem by Steve Denehan

Late afternoon but it felt like midnight slouched on the couch in a drowse the room lit by the television my father started to snore I looked at my watch not even 4pm I grabbed my jacket stepped out into a slap of a day a white world the first white Christmas in years I jogged around the corner knocked on the door his mother answered we exchanged happy Christmases she shouted for him he bounded down the stairs “What’s up?” “Not much.” “Christmas eh?” “Christmas.” he grabbed his jacket we hopped into his mother’s car hit the road turned up the music drove the world was empty we sung to it came to St. Anne’s Park parked the car took a ball from the boot our breath was white too as we walked to the locked gates and scaled them the way teenagers can 240 acres all our own we walked to a pitch blanketed perfectly with snow put the ball down got to passing short and long, high and low we took turns in goal shooting and saving picked our corners watched the ball cut through the white the muffled sounds of our strikes the coughing caws of winter birds the beautiful pointlessness of it all darkness came down quick and hard put an end to us we traipsed back to the car leaving behind a thousand dirty footprints in the snow and other things