My teacher said, “Writing is a
provoked activity”, and each letter
from you shows me this truth
with a distilled purity.
Perhaps distance is not enough
to provoke: perhaps my presence
was a short circuit which earthed
the surrounding electric world:
perhaps the shock waves beamed at you
make you too numb to write.
I say ‘perhaps’ my love because I
know this isn’t so: my absence is
not that pain because I have yet
to let you in my sacred yard.
The stumps of my self-felled trees
of memories have their roots still deep…
so distance provokes this writing now
at a quaking moment of truth:
Today, while changing clothes and
transferring my pocket contents,
I found that, among other trinkets,
I had your last letter —
(crumpled and folded and faded with touch)
and that it was with me always
like a talisman.