Monday, March 18, 2024

Poetry Monday: The Letter is in the Wind

The Letter is in the Wind

I could dry up and blow away before

A letter arrives

I drag a lawn chair to a breadbox of a mailbox

The kind 1950s teens used for bathing practice

I sit, and imagine letters

Dear Mike: My love is like a red, red rose.

Mike, I miss you terribly I ache with it

I would gladly read whatever missive lands here even

The bad or sad news

Michael, dear: F--- you and the horse you rode in on

Note: my asthma acts up around livestock

Mike: Grandma died today. She was surrounded by

Friends and family and you

Were not one of them

Mike: Our dog Zeke got run over by the truck delivering

Your Christmas package, the box containing the latest

Brautigan book and a chew toy for foundling Zeke.

I would read them all, even the letter that promised

A scholarship in a far-off place and an ensign’s gold bar

A job as reporter in a strange city that will have

Plenty of stories and you will be lonely.

Dear Sir: You too could be a winner!

As I said, I will read them all perched along the

Lonely rural blacktop named Expectations Road.

2 comments:

RobertP said...

Ok, now that is GOOD!

Michael Shay said...

Thanks, Bob. I blame Covid for knocking me off of my blog. And I was finishing a novel, second in a trilogy. The first two are ready to be picked up and published but I may do that myself. I'll email you a sample.