All I want for Christmas is you

I know that I want doesn’t get, Mariah,
but the conditional isn’t quite honest enough:
I would like is just a sad Christmas list
that never gets read, my whole life waiting
for my turn, hiding words like I could love
someone else, I can’t do this anymore under
a big black sweater embroidered with maybe.

I know that miracles don’t ever happen, Mariah,
and that the twinkly lights on the tree are just
a torture of wires I will have to unravel later,
but I want I want I want beats my heart I want
I want you to undress me, kiss my neck so gently,
make a path deliberately, slowly, down my body,
like a fox’s silent pawprints through snow.

Eliza Gallagher lives in the wilds of Ireland. She keeps bees and runs every day.