Hostage

Really rather blown away by the below poem by Eric Raanan Fischman (an MFA candidate at Naropa University)

Hostage

for Jennifer Faylor

By the time you read this, the air

will turn white.  The Sun will wake up

like a winter bloom, harvesting

its own light, and the barren clouds will break

like mirrors in a house of mourning.

There will be no more storms, no bombs,

no more seeds of ice.  Only the stark feel

of white paper, and the blue sound of my voice.

 

This is not the first letter I’ve written you,

but all the others were composed

on the backs of sealed, stamped envelopes.

A woman in Boise, Idaho believes

that I cannot live without her.  A man

in Tennessee keeps my soul on his bed-stand.

A Nicaraguan coffee farmer is the sole proprietor

of warm, passionate, August nights.

 

Here inside the mailbox, it is always

  1. Under the rectangular moon, the stamps

and envelopes make love like fireflies.

Magazines peek from beneath their covers.

And I fashion this letter, on a Cosmo’s table

of contents, on a Chinese take-out menu,

on my arms, my lips, and the steam of my breath,

hoping that it will reach you.

 

-Eric Raanan Fischman, published in Sixers Review

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