christmas miracle

you remember
asking your mother when
you were eleven
or twelve
if your father
was coming home for
Christmas.
maybe, she'd say.
we'll see.
but you knew
he was living with
his girlfriend
doris, the avon
lady, at the time,
raising a new
family in a new
house three hundred
miles away.
you were pretty sure
the odds
were against
him coming down
the chimney
any time soon.
but your mother
would still
put a glass milk out
and a plate of
cookies on the table,
his favorites,
just in case things
miraculously
changed.