It comes in cool green wrapping paper.
It’s not Christmas.
What did I do to deserve a present –
offered white-gloved, palms up and open?
Discarding ribbon,
ripping paper,
flicking off tenacious tape,
I’m surprised to find
it’s a box of prickly red help;
the kind that draws blood if you accept it.
And it has matching leg-irons.
You shouldn’t have.

Copyright ©2000 by Brian Tacang. All rights reserved.
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