For absent friends and family.

The Gift

By Michelle Garren Flye

it’s a Gift, she said, holding it tight.

why don’t you open it? i replied.

oh no, she laughed, you don’t open it.

i studied the golden wrappings,

the shiny, shimmering bow.

what do you do with it then? i said.

for answer, she breathed and laughed and cried—

she played and lived as the Gift slowly faded.

but she held it like a treasure the whole time.

only then did i see my own Gift bound in gold.

i wondered how i hadn’t noticed it before—

though i’d held it until its light had gone.