As requested...

Someone gave me a very complimentary message on Facebook, asking for a copy of the poems I read aloud at a poetry reading at Albion College. If I were famous, I would just sell copies of a book, but I'm not, so I will be posting the poems I read, as requested. (And thank you again, it is a great compliment to receive.)

This is the first poem I read at the First Annual Albion College Creative Writing Reading (I will make separate posts for each poem, to avoid the problem of exceedingly long posts)
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The Act of Writing a Letter



I fill a page
with the details of my life and mail it
to my grandmother. I clean my room simply so I can say
I have done so. Maybe I comment on a book
I've been reading at night before I dream. Or I tell her
what I cooked the night before, or some nights before that,
let her imagine the steam in my face as I stir a pot on the range.
She finds the small envelope with my handwriting
between glossy postcards and larger envelopes
with her proper name typed out.

She replies on cream stationary, gold lined
envelopes. She smiles at my neatness, then
finishes her coffee. She's glad I write to her.

Hot and sharp stick me. I eye the stack of letters I've addressed
but never sent. For every one she opens
there are four mouldering in envelopes,
under smooth-faced magazines with shining make-up ads
and stray papers ringed with coffee stains.