Sarah J. Sloat / Excuse me while I wring this long swim out of my hair

Sarah J. Sloat grew up in New Jersey, and has lived in Germany for many years, where she works for a news agency. Sarah’s poems have appeared in RHINO, Court Green, Bateau and Opium, among other publications. Her chapbook, In the Voice of a Minor Saint, was published in 2009 by Tilt Press. Reindeer Every night the reindeer gaping in the basement window. Slenderly. Legs flash past the lights, antlers hung like candelabra, a matter of faith. Their hooves move like spoons. Mouthful of mud. Mouthful of Armagnac. The sleigh is the absolute rhapsody, the last word in lunging, an epée plunging from a white glove. The reindeer confuse weeping for wind, acorns for bells. Since they came, I mourn no more for my horselessness. They believe in the least of us. They nose unpretentiously through the nativity while I unscrew the base of the snowglobe. They’ve been so patient. Now we go in.