on the envelope by James Thurgood

                     judy dean CC



on the envelope

     my mother used two pens:
                       stepping away 
     to look up my last address,
                                  she lost the blue
          but found a black,
then wrote the box number 
       – beneath village, province and code
              
her release from 
      the written world is slow –
           after seventy years
the odd misspelling,
               one day a grammar error
      later a missing word
            then key details gone
– which brother? –
           now my address jumbled
                 as if to amuse the mailman

     I see disorder grow
          to someday switch the two addresses
and her own letter send to her –
      but seeing my address as the return
            she’ll tear it open
                                               and read
            of flowers blooming,
      of neighborly airs,
                of what was served 
                                      dish by dish,
           of what was said
                          versus meant,
          who visited,
     how the dog jumped,
              what birds are back  
                                                       – finally from her son
                 the letter she always wanted

​

James Thurgood was born in Nova Scotia, grew up in Windsor, Ontario, and now lives in Calgary, Alberta.  He has been a general labourer, musician, and teacher – not necessarily in that order. His poems have appeared in various journals, anthologies, and collected in a trade book (Icemen/Stoneghosts, Penumbra Press).

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