Mercer Simpson
Love Letters
Old letters lie in ribboned boxes,
punned and penned in paradoxes,
and the ink that scratched the heart
has browned and faded into dirt.
Still we hold to what was clever
ever in belief that never
was it truth that made the hand
illegible to understand.
Do not open, do not burn,
lest the envelope may turn
snakes of lies from flames of dust,
images memories mistrust.
Time’s deliberate motions work
to quieten blood, discourage talk,
and, lest another love the lies erase,
seal up the box, rewrite the phrase.
Page(s) 40
magazine list
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- 10th Muse
- 14
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- Agenda
- Ambit
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- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
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- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
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- Iota
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- Lamport Court
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- Magma
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- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
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- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
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- Poetry London (1951)
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- Poetry Salzburg Review
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- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
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- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The