Tangerines on Christmas Day

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It was safety unreeling in the words of the song
We sang before Christmas. It was in the classroom
Strewn with lights above our guileless heads.
I was seven. In my sweater. Carmine crewel, soft
Fabrics. I was proud of the sweater and prone to
Believe in honesty and grace of minds shrewder
Than mine. It was a tangerine day. They brought
The fruit and cake and mirth and the music and
The movie we watched, it ended quite well.
It was snowing outside. Silky silence outdoors
Made me think of the magic and the elves and
The pure and the winning of the truth. It was cosy
Inside, in the first years of life. Tangerines on
Christmas. Raging blizzard outside, no concern
For young dreamers. We sat at our desks, holding
Future in palms of our still unlearnt hands. Sweaters
Knitted by our mums, no weight on our chests.

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Aleksandra Tryniecka is an Assistant Professor at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland, a writer and an illustrator. Her first book is the award-winning Bunky and the Walms: The Christmas Story.

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