Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair
Sarah J. Sloat
dancing girl press, 2011
$7.00
Sarah J. Sloat grew up in New Jersey, and has lived in Germany for many years, where she works for a news agency. Sarah’s poems have appeared in RHINO, Court Green, Bateau and Opium, among other publications. Her chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint, was published in 2009 by Tilt Press.
Reindeer
Every night the reindeer gaping
in the basement window. Slenderly.
Legs flash past the lights, antlers hung
like candelabra, a matter of faith.
Their hooves move like spoons.
Mouthful of mud. Mouthful of Armagnac.
The sleigh is the absolute rhapsody, the last word in lunging,
an epée plunging from a white glove.
The reindeer confuse weeping for wind, acorns for bells.
Since they came, I mourn no more for my horselessness.
They believe in the least of us.
They nose unpretentiously through the nativity
while I unscrew the base of the snowglobe.
They’ve been so patient.
Now we go in.
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