Prepare

Another Advent poem, this one by Danielle Chapman:

Advent

I hear the refrigerator's hum
turn over, the seltzer's
minareting spores

while downstairs the girls direct
a play in which a scored balloon
named Lily Amulet is lain
in her bassinet against
the stratagems of her evil brother,
StinkyButt, embodied by an orchid --

yet no argument, nothing but
soft rips of giftwrap and unmasked
tape as they negotiate
the haying of
Amulet's
creche.

No crisis, accelerating
into victorious survival, clocked
by revolving
arrivals at the hospital.

Just mistletoe and frankincense,
blue lights and candy canes blinking
red over the bannister,
prepare.