In Touch
Aug 1 2016


Something in the post office
might have suited me better.

A fixed route
carrying letters door-to-door
seems a good fit
for a man so wedded to routine.
Not to mention the dogs, the regulars
the outdoor air.
Even the weather, out in the real world.
And all that walking
wouldn’t hurt. 

A respectable position
a good government job.
You would have thought, back then,
before email, and text.

The postman
 --  and they were all men, as I recall  -- 
was a reassuring figure
making his rounds.
A symbol of order, and calm.
The authority of a uniform
the measured walk. 
Children were taught
he could be safely called upon
if there was trouble.

My mother would leave a 5 dollar bill
at Christmas,
tipping the mailman
milkman
paperboy.
The breadman, as well.
In furthest suburbia
with its small lots, and sparse trees
and newly-paved streets,
an essential service 
for housewives moored to home.

But there are no postmen
in the high-rise condo
patrolling its halls. 
The mail appears
in my assigned box,
and letters slip through the slot
never doubting they’ll get there.

That you took the trouble.
That was written in your own hand.
That will keep in a dark desk drawer
until it’s found;
like reaching back across the gap of years, 
and getting in touch
once more.



A nostalgic poem that leaves no doubt I was born in the 50s, grew up in the 60s, and came of age in the 70s.  Yes, in deepest suburbia and before 2-car families, there really was all that door-to-door:  bread, milk, and actual broadsheet newspapers (both morning and evening!) -- as well as mail. My mother was very frugal (in her defence, she had reason to be!), but also very aware of obligation and social nicety:  so I think it was a slightly pained expression I discerned on her face, sealing those low denomination bills into their appointed envelopes. (And we didn’t even celebrate Christmas!)

I know I’m romanticizing it --- because there is a lot of hard work and misery -- but the life of  a letter carrier seems enviably simple and satisfying. And a mailman assumes a certain authority when he puts on that uniform:  an official agent of the state; a symbol of order.

There is much to be mourned with the passing of snail mail. (The personal letter, anyway. Bills still come. As well as official missives and unsolicited junk.) Yes, it frustrated our need for instant gratification. And it was more trouble than electronic communication. But there is something about an actual object, a thing that’s both tactile and personal:  the paper that was touched, the ink that was applied by hand, the idiosyncratic script.  And there are the  little incidentals, frozen in time:  a coffee drip, a latent scent. 

So this poem is a paen to the past through rose-coloured glasses. It may not even interest many readers. But it was fun to write. And I’m particularly pleased with its conversational tone: not strictly a prose poem, but getting there. And  this is a form I greatly admire. I like its accessibility. I like the writerly discipline its lack of formal structure requires. I like the subversion of dry prose with the whimsy and ambiguity of poetry.