*
Letter Written in The Keeper of the Bees
Dear Charlie,
Sometimes, still, I think I see you:
when I’m taking down the wash
and a trick of shade and breeze
animates an old sheet. Or when
I’m on a crowded streetcar
and glimpse the back of a man
slim and tall as you, band of tawny hair
winking between hat and nape.
I hold my breath, your name
inside of it. I am always
disappointed when he turns around.
*
Letter Written in The Varieties of Religious Experience
Dear Charlie,
I know I shouldn’t write
these letters in library books.
Each time, I swear it will be the last.
Was it the books themselves
you loved, how they opened you
into other lives? The way sunlight
spilled onto rows of reading tables?
Or was it the sound of people
engaged in hushed industry—
the rustle of papers, the coughs?
In the library, I feel the strongest hope
that you might read my words,
or if not you, that someone will.
*
Letter Written in Riders of the Purple Sage
Dear Charlie,
I’ve read about veterans
who are lost to their families
because they can’t remember
their lives before the war.
It spared their bodies but took
their minds. Is it wrong of me
to consider them blessed?
I’d visit you in the hospital,
bring you books and puzzles,
a scarf I knitted. I’d sit beside you,
fetch water or read the paper aloud
like a volunteer who doesn’t expect
you to know her name.
*
Letter Written in Lyrics of Lowly Life
Dear Charlie,
I don’t look at the books
as I choose them; my hands
measure their spines.
I carry them to the table
with the view of dogwood
and blur my eyes until I find
the flyleaf. For one who read
everything, the title hardly matters.
I hope I never pull down
the same book twice. Do I fear
reading my own words?
Or finding them erased?
*
Letter Written in The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Dear Charlie,
Do you remember our last picnic
before you joined up?
Early spring, the hills greening,
the Blue-Eyed Mary nodding.
We sat on a bluff above the river,
the water swollen with rain,
opaque with silt and clay.
This morning, daffodils bend
beneath snow. I long for your hands
to warm the winter out of me.
*
Letter Written in Color in My Garden
Dear Charlie,
I try not to think of the children
we might have had. When I see
the first grade students at recess,
their joy raps hard against my chest.
At night I dream of a girl
with eyes blue as mine
and acorn-colored hair like yours.
It’s always just before her bath—
her hair smells sour,
and the day’s grime smudges
her face. I open my arms
and ask her to tell me her name.
*
Letter Written in Office Etiquette for Business Women
Dear Charlie,
I think one of the librarians
suspects me. When I catch her eye,
she tucks an apricot curl
behind her ear and turns back
to her typing. Does she know
the exact shade of my grief?
Perhaps a brother served.
Anyway, she knows enough
not to stop me. Bless her
for letting our story
live inside other stories.
