It's Still Life

In All seriousness

A boy asks the local halal butcher
“Are you Santa, sir?”

And the butcher rolls two fingers
on his bristley beard, as if piecing
myth and faith into a jigsaw puzzle.

He spins the rotisserie, fat renders
in long drips from the doner meat,
and he slices precisely thin sheets.

“No, I am not Santa, but I know him,” says the butcher.
“What’s he like?” asks the boy.

And the butcher says, “Oh, you know.
10 fingers, and he’s about so big
and so large,” and gives the boy
Santa’s height, weight, and shoe size.

These poems/prose are draft versions, written in participation of Miz Quickly’s prompts and Writers’ Digest (Poetic Asides) November poem-a-day challenge. The aim: to produce a chapbook for submission. ©Misky 2022 Shared with #amwriting on Twitter. Images are ©Misky, and created using AI-Midjourney.