Last Post (Poetry)

Fifteen days from London in the snow —
the last card of the year — its envelope
a little bent and battered, with its flap
tucked in, the glue unlicked, unsealed, unstuck.

The inked address, smudged lightly, runs downhill —
a casual gradient from left to right
the writing unfamiliar, but the mark
is clearly Chelsea and the date is sharp.

The note quite hard to read — like doctor’s scrawl —
scraps of meaning linked — the contact thin
a postscript to the year, our farewells said
and yet so much of her lives on in him.