Christmas At Goodwill

It’s Christmas every day at the Goodwill donation door Where there’s so much Christmas to be given to the poor! Where the wreaths and trees pile up in a monument to excess Next to trophies, fine china, and bourgeois marks of success For which I once longed in vain, and for the owners I’d defensively grown disdain, Now in my care, I don’t even want them – they should’ve been thrown away. When I sort through these leftovers of such accomplished lives, I can only think of how uninformed I was to wish these shining trophies, wreaths, and trees were mine. It’s a cruel joke . . . I once loved Christmas day for the hope it offered that my wishes would be filled one day. I once longed for just one trophy or tree of beauty, but the shining ornaments and marks of success now given away Remind me only of a coniferous shrub that resembled a small Christmas tree Sawed down and taken with great guilt and fear from an unsuspecting landlord by my young mother on Christmas eve For the sake of hanging one ornament made by me But now all these coveted trees and adornments that were once deemed a necessity are too heavy to keep. But nobody wants to be the one to throw them away So they hand, dump, and throw them my way. But I can only resent all these wreaths and trees and trophies I surely would’ve dreamed of as a child Because they have now become nothing to me but an addition to another unreasonable pile.