LOVE LETTERS

Who owns a letter? I’ve burned them, boxed them,
thrown them in the chopped Hudson. They floated . . .

proving what a lightweight fling
I’d duped myself into. The heart’s

thick lumber skinnies itself into shavings
of crumpled crossed-out bleed. Slivers

under fingernails, the sarcastic dump
of mail carriers through your slot, cuts

on your sealing tongue: slow wounds
missives cause, heal, cause again.

Venture off your line, you’ll surely deeply
drown. Cast off aspersions, shanghai

drugged promises. Perfumed tyrannies get
pleasured by X, while B coyly pretends

she’s all she can be. Truth is always
an evasion executed by fantasy.