Post
The days that follow, we both receive
from you a letter. Jane’s was waiting
in a bleary mailbox shuttered
with snow, having crossed
westbound while she hurried east.
You couldn’t wait for spring.
Mine was older, slipped
with a tenner in an unchecked
pocket of my bag. For flowers,
you wrote, to celebrate
something or other. I forget.
I’ve carried it, weightless, all these hours.
Penny Boxall is the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge. Her collections are Ship of the Line (Edwin Morgan Award winner, 2016), Who Goes There? and In Praise of Hands
(with artist Naoko Matsubara).