Mental Status Exam
July 3 2022
In the mental status exam
the patient was asked
what to do with a letter
she found on sidewalk
sealed, stamped, addressed.
Deposit, was correct
drop it in the box.
But email, Tik Tok, text?
A young person
who has never written a letter,
received one,
or gotten a paper cut
opening an envelope?
Who never impatiently waited
to to hear from her lover
stationed overseas,
or get the news from her mother
clipped from the hometown rag?
Or every few weeks
dished gossip with a friend
who relocated West?
Who never sent in box-tops
to redeem for prizes,
along with “one thin dime”
to pay for handling?
Whatever that was.
Who never sent letters
home from camp
under a counsellor's watchful eye?
Received their final marks
from summer school?
Or the usual card
on birthdays and Christmas
on which dad was instructed
to add his inscrutable scrawl?
Hardly a fair question
when letterboxes
are few and far apart,
and actual letters
are special gestures
intended to impress.
When a clean inbox
is all one could ask for,
and how to empty it
the real quandary
no one knows the answer to.
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