Poetry: Christmas Breakfast in the Hôtel Les Trois Poussins

By: Cecilia Gigliotti

picturing a cellar festooned vermilion,

starry for festival. Murmurs—

season’s pleasantries, day’s mundanities—

bleeding like hearts (so easy,

this time of year) through the clink

of sugar spoons in coffee cups: encrusted,

sweet as French conversation. Strangers’

glances bound off the ceiling’s generous curve

and collide. Please forgive those

that are glazed by the throes

of poetic labor. Please forgive those

who do not speak at all. Shelter

in a stone space where cultured blood

and tongues commingle, apologetic as

the blush of the porcelain stars on the wall.