Danielle Chapman discusses this poem with our critic, Anthony Domestico, on the extended segment of The Commonweal Podcast.

I hear the refrigerator’s hum

turn over, the seltzer’s

minareting spores

while downstairs the girls direct

a play in which a scored balloon

named Lily Amulet is lain

in her bassinet against

the stratagems of her evil brother,

StinkyButt, embodied

by an orchid—

yet no argument, nothing but

soft rips of giftwrap and unmasked

tape as they negotiate

the haying of Amulet’s

crèche.

No crisis, accelerating

into victorious survival, clocked

by revolving

arrivals at the hospital.

Just mistletoe and frankincense,

blue lights and candy canes blinking

red over a bannister,​

prepare.