Dead Letter Office (Poetry)

Paper hearts stood up on a blind date
they hang around — hopeful perhaps —
heedless of the dust time coats them with indiscriminately
all these years of yellowing paper —
urgency and passion fading — ink going through
its shades — losing pigment — blue-black breaking
down to dove-grey swirls —
the impatient crossings-out and swarming kisses worn to ghosts
folded with the pages.

Undelivered for the reasons scrawled
across each crumpled envelope —
NOT KNOWN AT THIS ADDRESS: RETURN
TO SENDER or simply GONE AWAY
and one BELIEVED DECEASED alone
in its narrow pigeon hole —
set apart as a mark of respect.

Another hand — anonymous — in search
of a return address
broke the seal and scanned along each line —
the sense of intimacy defiled
by this intrusion into private worlds
where atmosphere escapes in sighs —
bubbled thoughts rising — popping
on reality’s sharp pin.

Filed together in date order — front to back
a line of suitors sent from foreign lands
to beg the hand of some gypsy princess
long-since aged — moved on —
who dreamed once upon a romantic time
of rescue and a letter lost —
mislaid in transit...

Somewhere in a patient place she waits
imagining the writer —
how he spent the longest night
choosing — forming tenderly on paper
love’s string of words breathed
into the dark.