Months before, pour in

suet, flour, sugar, eggs—

raisins and cherries, a couple of glugs

of good French brandy—then stir

to a thick, stiff mash. And one by one

bring us all to the kitchen, to drop in

each a silent wish and stir

for luck. Let it stand

in the dark, hope folded with ooze

of juices of fruit, fire

of the cognac that creeps

through it all—let it steep, transmute

from a bag of dust and fat

to the crown of Christmas, the peak

of the year. Someone at every inch

of the table that’s clotted

with turkey and gravy and three

kinds of potatoes and two types

of stuffing and parsnips and microwaved

leeks and boiled Brussels sprouts—

our palates overloaded as our plates

but always there’s room

for the pudding, steaming

since breakfast, then its foil mask

lifted, its dark face kissed

to a plate, and flipped

over so it slides out whole—soused

once more in brandy and lit

to make blue spirits jig over and round

like devils at a dance, till they

flatten and sputter and it’s time

for the knife, for the slice

that Mum says is enough

though drowned in cream and buried

under curls of sugared brandy butter

it just might be, fat smoothing

the kick of the cognac, light

of the cream sliding over

the bite of the fruit—all velvet except

for the crunch and sour

of a packet of tinfoil, the good luck coin

she made sure to cut into your piece

to sweeten the emptiness, the hole

of another long year

after the last mouthful has gone.

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