Twas the day after Christmas
‘Twas the day after Christmas and all through my house,
not a person was stirring, especially my spouse.
The stockings were scattered all over the floor,
The kids having dumped them with hopes there’d be more.
The children themselves were all out in the snow,
Their new plastic toys now forgotten you know.
And ma in her bathrobe conked-out and asleep,
Had just started snoring- her exhaustion that deep.
When out at the mailbox there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the sofa to see what was the matter.
Away to the peephole I flew like a plane,
Killed the alarm and pulled back the chain.
The half-million lights on my house gave a glow
Like a nuclear winter to objects below,
When, what to my sleep-deprived eyes should alight,
But a small boxy truck, which you steered on the right.
With a blue-capped old driver, who practically ran,
I knew in a moment it must be the Postman.
More rapid than Starbucks the bills he delivered,
And he whistled, and shouted, and named them and shivered;
“Here’s Macy’s! and, Visa!,” he exclaimed with great stress,
“And Discover! and Citibank! and American Express!”
Shaking his head, his face starting to fall,
“Now cut them up, cut them up, cut them up, all!”
And as quick as white lightning he sorted that mail,
His hands all a’blur, the paper did sail.
So into the mailbox my debts he did heave,
And he lowered my flag and he started to leave.
And then, in a twinkling he was back to his truck.
But he turned back around, with a box …Oh! What luck!
As I drew in my breath, my heart starting to pound,
To my porch and my door he did come with a bound.
He was dressed all in blue, from his head to his toes,
His uniform spotless as far as that goes;
A bundle of mail he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a soldier, but not from Iraq.
His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
But the way that he twitched was a little bit scary.
His chapped little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And his cheeks were all red from the cold of the snow;
Some wooly dark earmuffs, lay tight on his ears,
And his scarf was the kind that they don’t sell at Sears.
He had in his hand a large box just for me,
One that I’d needed two days ago, see.
It was chubby and square, and about the right size,
And I laughed when I saw it- I’d finally gotten my prize;
But the wink of his eye and the twist of his head,
Filled my heart with a sickening sense of impending dread;
He spoke just two words, they were part of his work,
He said, ‘postage due,’ and I turned with a jerk,
He put out his hand as he asked for the money,
The fact that I had none was no longer funny.
So with my present in hand, to his truck he did go,
But watched for a moment my kids play in the snow.
Then I heard him exclaim, as he drove down the street,
That it’s the free toys in life that just can’t be beat.