Letters to Strangers
        This is my letter to the world
        That never wrote to me.
                        —Emily Dickinson

We write our letters to strangers, to you who will turn
the comer of the page to stumble upon a garden of poem
or this epistolary plain, write letters rooted in nuances
of the commonplace of our every day living where you
may plant yourself and perhaps lift the eyes, furrow
the brow, or tum lips upward into a sheepish smile,
maybe scratch the head or nod or not, bare feet propped
up on a fat pillow on a hard table top, to you thinking
perhaps about a lost child or safe return home, some
forgotten kiss or one you wish you had given freely,
that job you took on or wished you never had, that song
whose lyrics fleet in and out of a quiet afternoon or
disturb sleep, even those large lettered signs you lifted in
protest or others you did not heed and thought you would
or should, all while sipping a sweetened tea or rounding
a whiskey glass rim with lemon peel, fingers pressed
to temple, mind hovering or darting off from these letters
to strangers, clearing a way from the maze of the page,
letters trying speak to you, calling to you to stay a little
longer, to come here, come in a little closer, force your
ear to the earth of words straining to burst into bloom
just for you.

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Copyright © 2017 Andrena Zawinski All rights reserved
from Landings
The Aldrich Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission