Postmarked Past

It came today, a thin, white square,

from a name I’d almost ceased to care.

The handwriting, a looping, careful script,

my stomach turned, my breath was gripped.

Inside, the words, so measured, so polite,

could have turned a dark day into light.

They spoke of sorrow, of a fault confessed,

a weight lifted, long put to the test.

But the seal was broken, the moment gone,

a different person rose with the dawn.

It landed flat, a paper, nothing more,

the key to a lock that’s not there anymore.