letters from friends used to be an art form
literary exquisite observations of the soul
aesthetics and compulsions to give
order to whatever this life is
pages for a friend kept many a prairie
woman / lingering by her fire in a sod house
from committing suicide / some prairie
women killed themselves anyway
the letters from their friends
crushed in their fists / the same
fists that beat walls trying to
keep up enough anger not to die
not to burn the kettle swinging
over the fire / the ladle too hot to handle
loneliness stalking the
                 farmyard a warring Comanche

pages for a friend fluttering off
in the wind / lost breaths wishes
dying for someone to loom over the horizon
anyone / come talk / please come talk to me / now
i’ve no one to write
i’m so lonely i’m not sure i remember
how it is you read
you see i’ve memorized all the letters
my woman friends sent me
i could recite some to you
let me make some coffee & 
we could sit & talk
please, mister, let’s just talk
before i forget how & become silence.