Long Letters (published poem)

Long Letters

She writes long letters -
fat envelopes with
pages forced to fold,
shoe-horned into my letterbox.

She begins (and then she makes
an aside (briefly commenting
on that and then (meandering again
she finishes somehow and when she does
the brackets stack up like plates in a dish rack )))

She has broken up with the possessive apostrophe,
sick of its demands and fickle nature.
Her colons are cancerous, while exclamation marks
have mated and multiplied, throwing themselves
at verbs, huddling in excited groups.

Recycled writing paper taken
from her bedroom floor:
old homework, sheet music,
ads plucked from windscreens - sometimes
I have to send back a page and say
honey you need to sign this and return it to the bank.

This poem has just been published in the NZ Poetry Society 2006 Anthology, tiny gaps - and yes, I realise that I helped make that book so it might look a little suss, but I didn't get to choose which poems went in and they were all done anonymously anyway so HAH!:P Its also included in my zine, The Knife Thrower's Apprentice, which you can pick up in Wellington from Dandylion and in Auckland from Cherry Bomb Comics. I work in arts marketing when I'm not churning out the stanzas, peeps, anyone picking up that vibe?!