Letters are the things that you are left
with in the empty rooms of loss. Hold
the paper in your hand. Pretend
it is skin. Caress this pale skin with
your fingertips, attend to the scrape and drag of your
calluses and ragged cuticles. Wish that you were still
unbroken, a better archivist. Read the small
letters, pressed and curled into paper by a loved
hand, and breathe
in the spaces between the words.
Memorize the salutations, the startling
idiosyncrasy of signature. Write
back, find words for everything.
Even if there’s
no one left
to mail to.
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