An Unopened Present Poem by Jean Bernard Parr

'Ihave to rush' and
'I will open it later'
hush, do
and give birth to
an unborn child
a tiny mite that lies
boxed, in state for days
forgotten on alabaster mantle
so like a flower of joy, crushed
when about to bloom, now
buried in history's frigid loam
forgotten, become a sarcophagus,
pale ribboned, in the hearts' unheated
room. There is no life in the
unopened, for that is to be ungiven
else we would all be citizens
of the labyrinth and the pyramid
where the unseen is everlasting
so neat and daintily strangled
a friendship is, by that fast fading ribbon
it's bow immobile as the dust pinned
moth in heavy curtained gloom
and in a week or a month
the phone might ring
and down the line come
like unstopped wine, the gushing thanks
and gilded poean, too late
the guardian flame already guttered
and not my tears solidified
on wax white and petrified columns
grave, I vow never again
to do things later