“Her words, written to bridge the gap between us, cut through space and time.”
— Genevieve Kingston, “She Put Her Unspent Love in a Cardboard Box” (The New York Times)

(for Georgann)

I have her letters scrawled in her
never-warm flat in Swansea, penned
at the kitchen table near the small box
on the wall that gobbled pence like
peanuts, then spit out meager heat.

But she loved Wales, cherished her time
as an older student attending university,
her barely teen daughter at the local school
down the lane, uniformed and learning
Welsh, the California kid coming home
one day to proclaim, Nigel fancies me.

The onion-skin-thin light blue page
that still folds into itself unfolds
her before me, and I strain to read her
scrawl. Once, I didn’t have to. Her
words leapt off the page like sweet
fleas, attaching themselves to my
person, never to let go.

If you write to me, I’ll be your best friend.

It’s her handwriting on the blue
aerogrammes that brings tears,
along with that of other companion
spirits—their fingerprints, long gone,
infuse the paper, their words
nip my flesh in all the best ways.