Plain brown wrapping,
in accordance with regulation.
A soft-cornered box,
clearly well-traveled,
the distance evidenced by scuffs and indentations
inflicted by the international shipping apparatus
that spanned oceans of sand,
so agonizingly slow,
to bring it hence as whole and uninjured
as I hope it finds you.

So unassuming, this modest parcel,
only one in a parade of thousands of workaday posts.

But can you see the care in each sharply creased corner
and each straight, unwrinkled length of clear packing tape?
The Devil's in that tape, you know.
I fought near on half an hour with it
to make it behave and lie flat,
gleaming in perfect parallels over a field of drab brown.

Does the weight –
this 10.89 pounds of snack food and essentials –
feel comforting in your desert-parched hands?
You’ll recognize the shoebox beneath the paper
as belonging to your last pair of good work boots
that lie, still caked with red clay,
where they were kicked off thoughtlessly in the laundry room.

I’ll bet no package ever looked better to your eyes,
not even last year’s Christmas gifts
that I’d had professionally-wrapped
in extravagant holographic candy canes
trimmed with real brass bells
that tinkled madly at being disturbed from their aesthetic perfection
when you shook clues out of each present.

Did you run your fingers over the hand-lettered address just now –
feeling the alternating 'smooth, rough, smooth'
of the bands of tape and textured wrapping?
Did it, only for a moment, remind you
of the feel of your sun-scorched skin against mine?


As for the contents, my love,
I’ll let the powdered drink mix
and Double A batteries speak for me,
for even these small material things
are enough to impart love unconditional
and rip tears from the eyes of a war-hardened man.

06/07/2005

Author's Note: The last line might have gone just a hair too far. I was pondering leaving it out. I'm still playing with the word choice and sentence structure. Did I jump between tenses? Awe, well, if I did at least I didn't jump within the same stanza.

Posted on 06/07/2005
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