Anne Ryland
The letter from my father-in-law
Ten years on, touching its greyness
and the blade of its awkward fold,
I see how you’ve corrected the decade,
made nine into eight with a shaky circle,
how ink spurts and scrapes round letters
and sentences bump together
as they spill out, not knowing where to go,
how the spaces are not between the lines
but swim and gather at the edges
like a tide pushing you further away,
how the words have been picked one by one,
their fine shades weighed in your hand
then left to rest on the blotter,
how you anchor it down with one I
as if that stroke were too dark to write,
withdrawing so the light falls on others,
and you build a lasting end - Love Dad.
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Page(s) 63
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