Sonnet CCXXXII

The metal bench felt rigid to his sore behind,
the Christmas music, tinny, to his aching ears.
And so the shopping passed like this throughout the years:
a frantic, fruitless search, with nothing good to find.
This winter had been brutal to his weighty mind:
his wife was turning forty after all her fears;
but gifts were never bought, becoming all his fears.
He waited now, a deer in headlights dying, blind.

More fearful now, he knew he couldn’t buy some trash,
although it grew more tempting as he turned more brash.

But then, remembering how late he stayed at work,
how home improvements stole their time to love and live,
he knew at last the greatest gift that he could give
was time together, shared, a time he couldn’t shirk.