Friday, March 5, 2010

Mailbox

Mailbox
A Fable

Brandishing crowbars, a sledgehammer,
two men and a woman surround the mailbox.

It is Sunday night, three in the morning.
Inky-blue sky, houses motionless as broken toasters.

The mallet pounds the blue metal box,
and it leans its trunk towards the dewy grass on the lawn,

as if straining to hear noise just below
the ground. Then, the sound of a dishwasher being pried

from the wall. Now the crowbars,
the woman hisses. The three jerk the box loose,

extract it like a heavy-rooted weed.
One man nudges the mailbox onto a dolly, wheels

it out to a truck. The men and
the woman sit and drive, not saying a word

during the drive to the site, just breathing
hard, gazing out into the headlight-painted road.

The farther they drive, the higher the buildings
grow around them, tall and slender as sheaves of wheat.

Turn here, the woman again, her voice
softer this time. The truck crunches up to the place:

a four-storeys-deep hole in ground,
the space where a foundation will go, the air humming

in anticipation of the concrete that
will replace it. The woman pushes the mailbox from

the bed of the truck, scoots it through
the dirt, sends it sailing into the mammoth depths.

Fall well, she tells the mail trapped inside.
For a building to gather strength enough to rise,

it needs the voices in envelopes, in the mailbox,
sealed always, out of time and in, both fossil and seed.

2 comments

  1. "For a building to gather strength enough to rise,

    it needs the voices in envelopes, in the mailbox,
    sealed always, out of time and in, both fossil and seed."

    I love the concept expressed in the closing stanzas, and the story leading up to it; and my wonderment at the civilization and the group of people who would think to do this ritual, and to find it necessary- as if they were transplanted forward from a primitive time. And yet, their magic works- the buildings grow "tall and slender like sheaves of wheat." In a prose format, this story could succeed as a very short flash fiction.

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  2. This is a poem I know I'll need to return again to read.

    I'm behind on my blog reading and starting to play catch up again. I'm also sadly behind on my writing. I started writing an awful poem about a train this week and it kicked my can. I'm ignoring it until it can behave properly...

    I love your imagery with the "houses motionless as broken toasters" and "sheaves of wheat" -- original and striking.

    PS: You have a picture up now! Huzzah! You are beautiful.

    PPS: Annie, what is flash fiction? I've heard that term tossed around and really need to research it now...

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