“Dead Letters” by Barbara Louise Ungar

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Barbara Louise Ungar

DEAD LETTERS

I get letters for the dead. They blow

out of the mailbox and into the snow.

I find them encrusted in drifts

or rippled and faded in spring,

addressed to an old man

I loved. Phillip,

lover of horses, I’m sorry

she ploughed your garden under.

I would have tended it.

Every envelope with your name

I rip open (forbidden

and uncanny) I hope

bears the message

you are somewhere—

I would forward them.

—from Rattle #41, Fall 2013
Tribute to Single Parent Poets

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Barbara Louise Ungar: “I have published three books of poetry about motherhood and about becoming a single mother.” (webpage)