Page 31 - Vol. VI #1
P. 31
The Gift
I keep giving back even if I don’t yet know it
I untie the ribbon remove the tissue
only halfway opening the gift
I have and have not received it
To touch it run my fingers through this uncertain fabric is to admit
the gift flew in through a bent wire of the cage
It clung to me I wear it around my neck
sometimes like the blue satin scarf from India It chokes me
Birds circle overhead
waiting for what will come next
Elenbogen is author of the memoir Drawn from Water (BkMK University of Missouri Press) and the poetry collection Apples of the Earth (Spuyten Duyvil, NY). Her work has appeared in anthologies such as City of the Big Shoulders (University of Iowa Press), Beyond Lament (Northwestern University press), Where We Find Ourselves (SUNYPress), and maga- zines and journals such as Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Bellevue Literary Review, Tikkun, and Paterson Literary Review. She earned an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago Graham School.
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