Note: Every so often my thoughts are best expressed in a prose-poem – I call it that because I don’t know what else to call it. As I continue going through Aunt Clair’s stuff, this is what came to me.
Aunt Clair saved letters
Who do they belong to now that
She has passed to another dimension?
The sender? The recycling bin?
Me – her devoted niece and self-appointed family historian?
Are they private?
Can I use them in my writing?
She saved them
To what end?
Buried in a stuck drawer
Wrapped in rubber bands
Encased in baggies.
Liberated, gently unfolded
Expressions of love
From her mother who died 46 years ago,
Endearments scrawled with an unsteady hand
From her father, also long dead.
Sister, nieces and nephews
offering thanks for a thoughtful gift
updating her from college or from across the world
making amends for a misunderstanding.
Love committed to paper
Yellowing, disintegrating with my touch
Voices from long ago
Briefly heard again.
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