Early morning sun.
The day is bracing.
There`s some wind in the trees.
The fog moves.
You`re at the mail-box down on the dusty road.

A letter from England?
Yes, it is.
Popped inside those bundles of glossy junk.
Your name on the envelope
in my handwriting
– strange,
since I`m asleep in the bed you just left.

A letter from your husband asleep in the house.
You tear it open.
It`s a letter
written to you from years in the future,
written from now, just as I am writing this
now.

What`s happened?
You start to read.
You stop.
You can`t go on.
This is dissection.
You are being folded out like a map.

What will happen?
Passion Cancer
Divorce Career
Pregnancy What?
What?

The letter is reassuring.
The children are well.
I hope you are.
Where are they?
Have you left us?
Yes.

Yes.
And other news.
A war in Europe.
Public and private deaths.
We`ve had such storms.
The ice is melting.
It rambles. Little details.
Then an entire paragraph on the cat.
Then best wishes. Love.
And the children? Yes.
Yes, they send theirs.

The children get up, get dressed, you drive them to school.
They think you are a little bit distant this morning,
a bit preoccupied, entering freeway lanes
as if reading something, while the heat
presses the metal roof and you open a window
into the oncoming draughts as you move forward.
You have folded your letter back in the envelope in your head
where it will continue not to exist.