Poem For The Mad Letter Writer Not With Me, Who May Not Even Be

Issue 58

Rain mangles the glass.

When we drive, this car is a

basket that holds us

together. But it’s all,

you know I’m pulled somewhere

different. The map tells

of bridges, other streets. These

clapboard houses that stay

like 19th century Concord. Even their

colors are fixed, made to clutch

at some past. I keep

tasting words I’ll never

send you, that will probably

shipwreck at the bottom

of some poem. Do you think

in another place this wouldn’t be

so? Or that even here in these

wet hills where rainy ghosts of Thoreau

are humping shadow Emilys,

making even old word trees bloom alive,

I could live with you, Love?

Tho I suppose you only breathe on paper.