Faulkner at the P.O.
“You have thrown mail . . .in the garbage can by the side entrance. . .”
“You have thrown mail . . . in the garbage can by the side entrance. . . this has become such a common occurrence that some patrons have gone to the garbage can to get their magazines, should they not be in their boxes.”
— letter from the Corinth, MS postal inspector to William Faulkner, 1924
There are wastebaskets brimming with clouds,
flurries of words — origami small-talk
and a full house of green-grass postcards,
maybe an inheritance folded in jargon
or somebody’s tsunami confession
ripping through whole neighborhoods of gossip.
Overseas, a soldier is writing his girl a letter.
He seals his proposal all in white
and rings his love with lines that rhyme.
Back home she waits, fingernails
tapping out a Morse code of hope,
her future an empty slot. Back home
in the barroom of efficiency
there are poker players drinking whiskey
and a habitual spinner of stories
reluctant to wait on patrons.
The mausoleum of all desire ticks
unnoticed by even the bills as the dust
goes on breathing late amber light
and in a blooming beyond reality, a girl
comes home smelling of trees in the rain.
