Still Receiving

The mail keeps coming for the dead.

Credit cards. A special rate.

I got the cut before I even read

her name inside the little gate

of the address window—just the edge,

the envelope, one clean line.

It's nothing. Barely breaks the skin.

The kind of cut you'd normally assign

no meaning to, run under water,

forget about by afternoon.

I set the envelope down on the counter.

Her name still in the window. The room

the same as it was before I opened the stack.

Six months of forwarded mail.

The postal service moving her name

from the old address—the trail

still live, apparently.

Still routing. Still confirmed.

I pressed my finger to my mouth.

The cut stung. The name burned

differently.

I haven't thrown the envelope out.