Heat Wave (Poem for Novica Tadic Perhaps)
       

It was so hot people were unzipping

their people costumes

even the phantom limbs had melted

the cats were on strike

the postman said it'll be the short pants today

I was assigned to the dead letter office

he said now count the years between names

count the miles between towns

silent as shipwrecks

when I finished snow was falling through the roof

through the ribs of the dead

the letters were fed to prisoners

he said otherwise they will outlast this country

the only lasting monument to our lives

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Copyright © 2018 Mark Wagenaar All rights reserved
from FIELD
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission