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# The Letter
- URL: https://www.andyposner.org/the-letter/
- Published: 2015-10-14T17:29:07.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-15T05:03:14.000Z
- Description: One day she arrived like a scab dragged across a ballad of iodine, a sequin of stars stitched to a dormant volcano’s lapel
- Author: Andy
- Tags: poetry, love, #Migrated-1784090317409, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-07-15 04:39

One day she arrived  
like a scab dragged across a ballad  
of iodine,  
a sequin of stars  
stitched to a dormant volcano’s lapel,  
and as if by sleight of hand  
or twist of fate  
came to smolder  
in my mailbox, that manmade mistress  
of the gods  
and the Postal Service.

My surprise was pulmonary,  
elemental,  
like a lava saxophone  
breathing fire  
and an archipelago  
of liquid heat  
giving birth to jazz.

What Circe could have saved me  
from an epistolary demise?  
What mast could bind me?  
What beeswax blind me?

None. Envelopes seduce  
like pastry-stuffed ovens  
suffusing stagnant air  
with trinkets of butter and chocolate.  
And so I stood by the boiling pot,  
by the eager salt,  
and read.  
And read again.

The chaste mind is naïve.  
Jerusalem  
is a postcard  
of chastened ruins  
and toy guns  
and faith  
in lethal salvation.  
But Granada,  
O Granada,  
your calligraphy  
simmers in sunshine  
like the fat of  
a sacrificial lamb:

No, no poet could appease you.  
All those stanzas died in vain,  
and now on my kitchen table  
I sort bills and coupons  
as though good credit  
could make up  
for a transient love  
that left no forwarding address.

*Monday, May 14, 2018*