Love’s Tight Embrace
by cricketjeff on December 22, 2011. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
The chimney wasn’t quite as broad as Gordon had expected;
Next time, he vowed, he’d check to see the site had been inspected.
His torso wedged immovably just halfway up (or down)
With all his costume’s red and white transformed to black and brown.
She bubbled like an eight year old and carefully composed
The speech she’d make the moment that her Santa Claus proposed.
But what was all the thumping and the banging from above?
Her mind did not associate such thundering with love.
He wriggled to the left and right and tried to think thin thoughts,
He wished he’d eaten fewer sweets and tried a few more sports,
Then slowly, oh so slowly, he descended inch by inch,
While bits of brick and who-knows-what discovered how to pinch.
She hardly knew what she should do, to scream or look and see,
To understand the hubbub, or abandon bravery.
But soon this raw dilemma would resolve in clouds of soot,
When she first saw the waggle of her suitor’s booted foot.
At last the close constriction of his rounder parts abated,
And like a punctured rugby ball he noisily deflated.
He wasn’t quite magnificent, nor even almost smart,
But Gordon felt immense relief he still could play his part.
She tried to show compassion for her would be Father C.
But all her good intentions turned to base hilarity.
They wed, of course, when he was clean (it took a year or so)
And now reside together in a flueless bungalow!
English