Dearest L
The people here are rising up
Soon, the king will fall
You were right to get out
I’m beginning to learn the language
Yet, still can’t speak of all I’ve lost
At dawn, soldiers flew a bright red flag
Over Parliament Square
I pictured you on the Basilica steps
Your silk dress tailored by the breeze
One long lost afternoon
I walk the backstreets, late into the evening
Drinking in the scent of charcoal cooking
Your voice comes to me in ghostly echoes
Describing dreams or weaving pretty fables
I’ve been reading Dante
Sinking deep into myself
Each glass peels back another layer
I drink into the dawn
I found myself in a darkened wood
The straight path had been lost
O, you were right to get out
Sincerely, T
Dearest L
The morning paper screams that I was wrong
Your father’s wisdom rings like a bell
The revolution has now begun
I’ve been called to fight
Tomorrow, I collect my boots and rifle
I don’t know when I’ll write again
My fingers tremble, I can barely roll a cigarette
The most serene memory I can conjure
Is that midnight kiss we shared
On the bridge between East and West
My palms against your nape
Your wrists around my spine
That secret you whispered
Quietly reframing our future
I cling to that memory like my papers
Like that treasured book you gave me
Like the air I still somehow breathe
I’m floored by all these derelict years
That clawed their way between us
I kissed your words away
How I long to draw them close again
Sincerely, T
My Dearest T…
Your postcards have lit my nights
Since the power went out
I felt your soul draw ever nearer as I read
Today, I laid fresh flowers on our daughter’s grave
Baby’s Breath six feet above her sleeping head
I hurried through the countryside
A blanket thrown over my sunken shoulders
How many lifetimes must I live without you here
I edge closer to the border with each passing month
A farmer’s wife has given me recent shelter
She swears of prayers that will lift us from this danger
I smile back at her with red and streaming eyes
My fingers inches from the old oil lamp
How I long to run them through your beard
I was wrong to get out when I did
I was wrong to leave but what choice was there
Your son is writing poems for the farmer’s children
Teaching them knots and how to find a smile in hell
Every day, he reminds me more of you
Will we ever be a family again
And if we can, I beg that day comes soon…
Eternally yours, L…
[This one started as a collaboration with another poet, each of us writing imagined postcards. When progress stalled, I wrote a final one to wrap things up. These are my postcards.]
