Snail Mail The corrugated paper you bought at the craft store
Rubs rough under my fingers, tracing your words:
Thick black ink painted over an off-white, bumpy braille
Message whose words I can't read, but don't have to. You've hand stitched a border in bright thread,
The same bleeding color of the piece of me
You took with you when you flew south
Three years ago. That's alright;
You can keep it. The stars we used to laugh about were scribbled in
That same dark hand, but they aren't so funny now.
They're jumbled and messy, and we're hysterically
Unable to see the constellations they're said to form. The problem with this last letter of yours is just that:
It was the last.
But your birthday is this month, and I'm sure you'd
Like to visit the piece of you that's still in my desk.