Public Republic

Roger Craik

Photo: michale

When your last letter came at last, it came
not as you said it would,
by hand, in my mailbox —
your nerve, I thought, was not equal to that –
but in the trusty U.S. Mail.

I read it twice: the usual
catalogue of blame to obviate
two years’ known dithering, placating
me, and him as well. It was, I also thought,
a letter to yourself. Hell. I crumpled it,
lobbed it at the usual place.

And yet. . .

It was the height of summer.
Outside, a mower started up.

And supine on my couch I lay and heard
the birds and the electric mower,
the electric mower and the birds.

Poem from the volume of poetry “Those Years“