Art Practice - 2023, 23

Three Letters in March

On the fourth, it was yellow, with a border in red, "addressed to the new resident" the handwriting said.

It held an old coin, rusted and brown,

and a blank sheet of paper, no words written down.

On the twelfth it was white, addressed in neat print

to no-one particular, no further hints.

Inside was a poem, printed in chalk

letters, set wide on dark, patterned stock

The last came on Sunday, March nineteenth near,

addressed to a man that never lived here.

"Let's drink to the end of a beautiful kinship,

don't bother too much with starting the guilt trip.

Your good friend, the Tailor" the letter concluded.

I put it away. I felt I intruded

and while I never learned the story they hide,

I think of them, every year, soon after the Ides.