Letter from Long Island

Trestles of lines accost her—
curls and clean edges, dots and crosses
hollow shapes and and empty spaces.
Words are lonely secretaries.

After smudging the blue ink,
she retraces folds and creases,
returns the specimen to origami.
 
Pushing the shell of thin glasses
to the high bridge of her nose,
she recalls the language of Paumanok
and pens the valediction. The train
speeds toward home, arcing into
the dialogue of never-ending notes.

The title of the post is from my poem “Postcard” which appears in Reconnaissance.