Please Write

I once wrote about how much I love sending and receiving mail - actual pieces of paper on which someone has written with ink and sealed in an envelope and stamped and dropped in a mailbox. It's about how personal it is, and the connection, however small and taken for granted it may be, that it is to another person.

So when I read "Please Write: Don't Phone" by Robert Watson in "Good Mail Day," I just smiled and thought to myself, "Exactly." I thought I'd share it with you.


Please Write: Don't Phone

While there is mail there is hope.
After we have hung up I can't recall
Your words, and your voice sounds strange
Whether from distance, a bad cold, deceit,
I don't know. When you call I'm asleep
Or bathing or my mouth is full of toast.
I can't think of what to say.
"We have rain?" "We have snow?"
Let us write instead: surely our fingers spread out
With pen on paper touch more of the mind's flesh
Than the sound waves moving from throat to lips
To phone, through wire, to one ear.
I can touch the paper you touch.
I can see you undressed in your calligraphy.
I can read you over and over.
I can read you day after day.
I can wait at the mailbox with my hair combed,
In my best suit.
I hang up. What did you say?
What did you say? Your phone call is gone.
I hold the envelope you addressed in my hand.
I hold the skin that covers you.


Yes, that's it exactly.