October Postmark

The box had been sitting since November.

I kept meaning to get to it. I kept

not getting to it. By April, I remembered

it was there and finally opened it. Swept

aside the usual — the catalogs, the bill

I'd already paid online, the flyers.

And your card. Postmarked October. Still

with your careful handwriting, the prior

version of us visible in the way

you formed the letters. I want to try again.

Five words. Blue ink. I read it in the gray

kitchen light and then I read it again.

October. I'd have called. I'd have said yes,

probably, the way you say yes to something

you've been waiting to be asked.

But February passed and March, and the thing

we'd built out of not talking held.

You didn't call. I didn't call. The card

sat in a box under the mail that fell

through January. Your words, still sharp,

still blue. The stamp pressed slightly crooked,

like you pushed it twice to make it stick.