Dad’s left arm reaches across Mom’s back and even across Dottie’s, his daughter’s, and just touches with his fingertips his son Rusty’s shoulder. Dottie’s ten, Rusty eight, though small for his age and his left eye a little lazy. The tree thick with foil and lights, lit candles, and a mantel hung with monogrammed socks. Reindeer race across Dad’s sweater. If you lift this picture to your nose, you smell cider and snow, Mom’s valley-of-the-lily perfume. The fire’s pine knots snap. Oh bless this family and their dog, Chocolate, bless this house and hearth, and bless Grammy, who will be here soon, though Grandpa won’t this year, nor dear Aunt Elsie, dear, dear Aunt. The big blue bowl of crabmeat salad she brought each year ditto won’t be here. Bless this family, the living and the dead, and may they never send a card or newsletter to me again.
—Thomas Lux
Rights & Access
“Family Photo Around Xmas Tree” from THE CRADLE PLACE: Poems by Thomas Lux.
Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Lux.
Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
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Thomas Lux
Thomas Lux (1946-2017) published twenty poetry collections, including To the Left of Time (2016). Born in Northampton, Massachusetts, to working class parents, Lux attended Emerson College and the University of Iowa. He died in 2017 in Atlanta, Georgia.