Dear Stone,

You will never read this letter.
At midnight I am writing it
down the hill from where you sleep.
Twice already I have spilled ink
on my nightgown that used to be white.
May I tell you how my walls
echo Mr. Poe’s dark bird?
No matter. You will never read
these words wine is helping along—
wine I stole from Papa’s cellar
where I am never allowed. Who
am I to reach for pen and paper?
Today I spent silent hours
stitching bits of glass into cloth,
mirror shards I swept and gathered
and hid in Mama’s worn hinged box.
I’ll use it to wrap this letter
and fold it there beneath old roses
where she used to keep lace handkerchiefs
before the doctor killed her. Stone,
I know you don’t care for me
as I long for, pine for, yearn.
Yes, you are so much, much younger…
You will never read this letter.
By dawn it will be ash in ash
within this house that will easily burn.

With deepest love respect,
Theosophia