POEM FOR THE ROYAL MAIL BY MARIA TAYLOR

Par Avion

Air-speeded letters sing the light of home.
Lyrical with distance, the blue and red
flecked envelopes become a mother.

Home so far away it turns into myth.
Memory lapses into dream and dreams
are forgotten. The only reality is ink.

Your mother’s handwriting - neat and clean
on blue paper - soon spidered with age.

Her hands tremoring, years passing

like the planes tearing overhead as letters
exchanged over the arc of earth between
a woman and her son, Par Avion.

Faces, half-recalled, revived by pen:
sisters getting married, fathers always busy,
babies getting born, you missing.

Homesickness is an open wound
you may have thrown the letters away, but
I saw the blood through your shirt.

It spoke with a red mouth.

Comments

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