an island
of blank-papered, brown, cardboard boxes
balancing on a handful of broken-glass and knitted waves,
boxes of cream lace dresses with torn hems and stolen street signs [roses and cheshire cats stenciled over “kirchstraβe” and “mockobcka”]
and wrinkled copies of “the lady of shalott” once forgotten in the rain.
or maybe of one lone box,
a box of empty lockets,
tossed back and forth between two mirrors,
a sea of its ghosts stretching out to the horizon.
floating on the island:
a tall, blue, iron postbox,
his whiskered, mustached mouth yawning below a grizzled nose,
stoic and patient,
his throat a tunnel to the earth’s second half, the dreaming half.
she
[amber and rosemary and cotton]
slips a sealed envelope,
postmarked straβburg
[and skoΠje and holzen and prishtinë and chang chun and and and],
empty but for a whisper,
down his iron throat,
down the tunnel painted moon-grey.
chin on her knees,
legs crossed like an indian,
leaning back on her elbows,
dipping her toes into the filigreed sea,
waiting for a parcel
postmarked nowhere.
