(Looking through some old memorabilia, this fanciful idea took hold).
A creamy, jaundiced, dog-eared envelope
just appeared there, in the bottom of a drawer,
its corners bashed like wrinkled fingers,
the flap unstuck, ajar and begging for an audience.
Words unseen for thirty-seven years,
caught beneath the perfumed liner,
now sadly parched and mottled brown,
but saved, awaiting life’s breath awakening.
The velum crisp and delicate as a baby’s skin,
a whispered crackle sound as tentative fingers,
tease the neatly folded leaf into the light,
succinct, your words in my ear,
I will.
© Graham Sherwood 9/2009
