Before I Knew
the letter arrived unsealed
impossible to know if
the sender failed to finish the task
or the postal service had peeked
either way the contents
a single sheet of paper
managed to hang on
reaching the destination and
saying the same thing
that they were always going to say
never mind the glimpses
of other possibilities along the way.
Admiring the singlemindedness of purpose
I stood in the rain by the mailbox
dreading or anticipating?
I didn’t know
The unsealed letter breathed out
and waited.
1/24/19
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
This is so mysterious. I love it!
Thank you. Since I have lived far from where I grew up for a long time, back in the past I got a lot of letters (it being the 70’s and 80’s and even the 90’s). I never pick up a letter without a sense of anticipation even now. To me it is always a moment standing on the edge of…a cliff? a street? a doorway?
I used to love getting my grandfather’s letters when I was in college. I wish I had saved them.
I feel the same way about many people’s letters from those years. I still have a few, but I wish I had understood back then that one day, those people will be inaccessible to me except by what they left behind. Well, when you are young you never think of this, do you.
No, you really don’t. And then, when you move, things get tossed, too.
Yes. And the sad thing to me is, I can’t remember when I decided to let the letters go, or what I actually did with them – I guess I just put them in the trash, but when? and where?
That’s another poem then for you. 😏 But I don’t remember what I did with mine either. It’s sad.
I know a lot of mine got lost in moves. My mother also threw out some after I left for college and they were moving again. I too wish I still had them. (K)