"Missed Netting" "Your letters were
sterling, not enthusiastic.
The letters disappear, are late.
Lately, I don't trust them.
What if he/she isn't a good letter writer?
What if the institution doesn't have
a tradition of letters, two to three page, single space
letters?
The letter arrived from the heavy hitter,
meaning if so and so is the best candidate from the best
institution, he's the best, or worst, candidate in the world.
One shouldn't write letters when one is unwilling, ungraceful,
untruthful omissive or gnarled.
A child should not write with a crayon upon the wall
or in Plaster of Paris with one's finger.
One shouldn't write, when waylordly forlorn,
a letter of introduction.
One shouldn't desire letters.
Yes, you should.
You do.
How could you not desire to touch them?
Nor should one dismiss them.
He carried only a letter of introduction and a few coins.
Her hand is very plain.
A new way of combining superlatives,
the desires of letters is to impress
upon the reader a purpose or sentiment,
to convey information, to draw a picture, to persuade.
She was in bed scrawling by the light of a dim moon.
Her letters appear to be animals, unruly and untamed.
They disobeyed her again and again
until she had to chain them to her hand,
until they meant nothing.
Letters tied with string, hidden,
carried, buried in a park, burned in a cast iron pan
while reciting resolutions.
He wrote to his father every day during wartime.
She was shy about writing.
So after struggling with the little card,
she did not enclose it after all.
Another rush right after the concert, after the incident,
after the meeting, after the breaking
off in anger or fearfulness, in isolation.
Do letters themselves desire an answer or anecdote?
He could not help himself.
He was drawn to letters, drawn to write.
In conversation, she was often dull, unable to form thoughts
or to speak.
But in letters, she grew bold and gained manners
she could not perform in person.
Are you comfortable?
The letters asked one another standing lined along a fence.
Is that you I hear creeping along the limb, piled
in a corner, filed in a dark metal box,
spoken repetitively in the mind of the receiver,
the respondent?
Letters want to read and not be spoken, read silently
and tearfully, read and shredded hidden from other eyes.
A man and a woman of letters consulted an alphabet fence,
and there they live contently behind the borders
of textuality.
A girl of letters reads a book with pictures.
A small boy of letters tears the page.
A smaller boy of letters chews the book until it dissolves.
He points to the images.
That.
Demanding recognition again and again.
Letters fall to feed the garden.
Letters unopened, carried in a pocket all day,
until a moment of privacy opens.