to be in the Christmas pageant. She tells me
this standing in the door of what we
laughingly call my study.
"But I don't want to be Mary," she says.
"I want to be the guy."
That makes me look up from my bills.
"Joseph?"
"The Innkeeper. I want to slam the door
in Joseph's face."
She's eight. I wonder if we'll look back
on this in a few years and laugh. Or will she
want to be Herod then and weíll have to take
her little brother and flee.
Ron Koertge is a resident of South Pasadena. His most recent book of poems is Making Love to Roget's Wife.