for Christmas

for Christmas

For Christmas,
she kissed one hundred tea bags,
and sent them out,
one by one,
to old lovers in the guise of a present
along with a conciliatory holiday friendship wish.
(secretly, she hoped that one by one,
each man would boil the water,
and one by one
across the US, and in Guatemala,
France, Portugal, possibly Canada,
definitely New Zealand, and maybe Morocco,
her kiss
feint, but mixed with chamomile
would be lowered on a string into ceramic mugs,
styrofoam cups, old family or garage sale treasures,
porcelain tea-cups and a bath (if he even still did that)
and slowly,
the heat would release the tea and a hundred of her kisses
a hundred lips would blow on each kiss,
a hundred lips would touch the cup,
a hundred heads would tilt back,
a hundred necks would be exposed, and
a hundred of her kisses would find a home
and unsuspected safety,
and she would smile,
sweetly and safely under Christmas lights,
all the way into June.