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Appeal to the Captor
by Bruce W Niedt
Dear Editor,
It has been six months since I sent you my poem.
Ive received not a word, not a ransom note,
not even a stanza cut off and sent as a threat.
Is my poem alive and well?
When its returned to me, will it have lost its baby fat,
appearing instead as wiry, muscular, concise?
Or has it undergone some metamorphosis,
a bird, perhaps, feathering its nest
with string and self-addressed stamped envelopes?
Has it ensconced itself in your in-box?
Has it transformed to sconces itself,
like those eerie ones in La Belle et Le Bète,
the gilt-coated arms that move with you
as you cross the room, shadows shifting,
changing the lighting of walls and words?
Send me some word, a photograph of it
holding yesterdays newspaper.
A tape of it, reading itself back to me.
Even a rejection slip you pick the format:
wrapped around a rock through my window,
letters cut and pasted from magazines.
Until then, I await the day when
it appears, smiling wanly at my doorstep,
or singing choruses to the world on your page.
03/24/2002 Author's Note: [First published in ByLine Magazine, November 2002]
Posted on 03/24/2002
Copyright © 2025 Bruce W Niedt
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