Dead letter drop
Dead letter drop
There are no letters in the box
Not anymore
Once upon a time
It was stuffed to the gills
Bank letters in red
Par Avion
Airmail in blue
Tissue paper
With spidery thin writing
Crammed into every space
Written around the edges
Into the margins
Smaller and smaller
Men of letters
The Bible on a postage stamp
There were letters of acceptance
Of rejection
From first loves
Sealed with a loving kiss
Dear John letters
Tearjerkers
With smudged ink
Those that held a smell of perfume
Or the reek of death
Grimey corners covered
In fingerprints
From the trenches,
To the trenches.
Poison dripped from many
Words of anger and hate
Written in block capitals
Or in letters cut
From the headlines
Ransom notes
From jokers
With a penchant for violence
Hung by their own petard
When they were caught
At a dead letter drop
Master spies
Using invisible ink
Clever dicks
Wrote in code.
Even postcards arrived
Before you returned home
From your holiday
Or in a hundred years
Hand-delivered
With special care taken
To inform the local paper
Whatever that was.
Before A1
And the internet.
There are no letters in the box
It is full of circulars
From that estate agent on the High Street,
Two bay windows
Between a charity shop
And a Costa Coffee.
The corporation
Complaining about the bins
Being put out too soon
Taken in too late.
Front gardens that don't comply
With local standards
Dirty windows
That might need cleaning
But there are no letters
Not anymore.
Although,
That being said,
My inbox is full
Of junk
And offers of marriage
For the price
Of an airfare
And the cost of my integrity.