Too Big a Part
Last night the girls got their parts in the nativity.
Lydia is reprising last season’s triumph as the
Angel of Glory, all blondeness and glitter
looming like a valkyrie over star-struck shepherds.
Jasmine is to be Mary and distraught to
be pushed into the big time so soon.
We try and reassure her. Mary is the easiest, we say,
she doesn’t speak, all she does is follow Joseph
and stand around with a baby. There’s sheep, we say,
and you get to ride the donkey, but to no avail.
Jasmine stands at the window, tears mirrored
in the fat glass, as unsure of her place in the very centre
of the puzzle as presumably that woman then, turning
in her palm over and over, the luck of the world.
