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I’ve done this all before so many times,
the food, the drink, the jollity that’s not quite
happiness: more a flicker of kindness that
we tend with hope, while we try not to see
uncomfortable things, heads turned, eyes closed.
Instead we look with greed at the delicious
food, gaze at the presents glittering with dreams,
and see the candles flaring in the draught
we all try to exclude: we draw the curtains,
pull our cardies tight, our shoulders hunched
against the world outside. We smile cautiously,
eating and opening gifts, as we remember all
the things that can’t be said, that need our charity,
and our forgiveness, too. And so we drag
the old year with us to the new, back
to our daily lives, where doubtless still
I shall make celebrations out of light and dark,
and we shall wonder, yet again, what glue
keeps us together, knowing what we do.
Orlanda Marsden is a teacher, poet, performer, and writer of short stories and children’s books. She lives in south London.