Ephemera
Oct 2 2021
Who writes postcards anymore?
A breezy note
with nothing to hide.
And more than keeping in touch
a gesture of love,
to wish you were there
or say she arrived
safe and sound.
The exotic stamp.
The standard photo
of a castle or mountaintop.
And the handwriting you recognize,
with the same bad spelling
that made you wince
as well as smile.
Passed from her hand to yours.
A solid object
that someday someone will find
in the back of a drawer
and wonder about.
Who was she, and what were you like?
A postcard
from not only faraway
but long ago.
That still smells of her perfume.
With a fingerprint
on the glossy side
that might very well be hers.
And perhaps some DNA
on the stamp she licked,
her deft tongue
between soft wet lips.
Something disposable
that was never intended
to become as permanent as this.
Something material
that still contains a bit of her,
even after you've moved on
and she's surely long forgotten.
I've encountered a few pieces recently about enthusiasms for vintage things, like typewriters and vinyl records. I think some of this is just the hipster impulse to be different and contrarian. Some is pure nostalgia, as unreliable as that sentiment is. And some is a very legitimate longing – in age of virtual and faster and infinitely reproducible – for the slower and more connected way of life mechanical material things provide. Hands-on. Singular. Idiosyncratic. Imperfect.
Which made me think of postcards. Although the immediate trigger was encountering one of those very familiar but effective titles: Postcards From . . .; fill in the blank yourself. I thought a paean to the postcard would be worth a try.
I would have preferred to have voiced this in first person, which I always find more affecting. But the first draft ended up jumping from “I” to “you” to “he”, so I decided to stick with 2nd person, which ultimately worked best.
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