Wearing A Gift Ribbon Poem by Margaret Alice

After receiving a gift from my sister, I wear the
ribbon, a golden stripe on a white background,
around my neck and feel like a gift myself, I’m
the gift to my family and they are a gift to me

Nici, echoing my feelings about visiting voices
who sounded so superior and self-righteous -
who cut us right out of the conversation in their
self-absorption, Tiaan with his shy smile

My mother with her refusal to learn anything from
past experience, my sister with her determined
striving for independence and blustering, my
brother playing guitar, fixing everything

Dreaming of romance by interpreting a romantic
movie literally, if ‘Fifty First Dates’ can have a
man wooing his wife everyday, my brother is
determined to woo his own wife that way

He is more of a dreamer than me, my sister and
he promised to pray for me in the purgatory of the
open-plan office; my father with his love for music,
offering a big pumpkin from his vegetable garden

And you, succumbing to goodwill, stroking my back
while listening to Mozart, touched by carols sung
sweetly - this gift ribbon also reminds me of the
nativity as the greatest gift fantasy

That’s ever been recounted by history, just waiting
to be breathed into life by those who believe
and can picture it for themselves…