Designing Narratives

by Cheryl Sommese

She said he was a mythical figure

immortalized

to generate profits.

His followers nonsensically believe

while contemporaneously heeding innumerable messages

decreeing

the presents they need to buy.

I glance around at luring department store ads

and the fashionably-wrapped gifts

placed tidily under my tree

and wonder if we really

are tragic adaptations

of marionettes

on a string.

But his magnificence endures

even in a world wrought with deceit.

I repeatedly see his light

in certain souls I meet along the way. 

Some are professedly his

while others know little

of his splendor,

then realize the narratives

we need to mind

are duplicitously designed prototypes 

we instinctively strive

to find

our place in.