Away in a Manger

~

waking up

in a strange room,

only half-dark, the

blackout blinds once again

losing the nightly battle 

with the inconvenient 

street lamp just outside,

coming to, I focus on

an upright ovoid mirror

that’s straddling the slim tallboy

a scarf left casually draped

across its curved shoulders,

it glances stoically, passively

across the dull room to me

like a calm pallid Madonna,

serene but expressionless,

I blink repeatedly to focus 

face upturned in supplication,

and I think of family

waking up in different places

from this strange room

in the half dark

*

© Graham R Sherwood 12/23