intolerant at--
at words that don't work
and hating these

that cover just enough--
words revealed as shade

a letter came from Ukraine
tailing the newspapers' grey accounts
faster than the cloud of fallout

there were three smudges
from a child's digits, between the stamp
and my address

prints of proof you were there,
eating the Hershey’s I sent, though
your mother scrawled my name
and safe, numbered place I live,
a planet away  

the letter yet sits
on my desk, quiet, perhaps
waiting to be opened

I planned to surprise you
in your sluggish summer, with a visit,
and American Girl dolls

but April lasted forever  
for you, who happened to be walking
close to the melting kiln, looking
for spring’s first buds
on a Saturday morn

My Salvation did not stem from an angelic force
It didn’t even shine from God’s Paradise
Rather
Mine came from the Earth below
From flaming magma and frightening heat
From the crimson hand
That reached out to greet

We’ve always
learned in school
that if you were found
to have written
something that
someone else wrote
(even unintentionally)
you would be
reprimanded.
But even then
I've always wondered;
out of the billions
how could I
possibly
be so unique?

Herein lies catacombs of ages past
Where sanguine spread from the lashed spine
And coated echoing halls of their superior peer
Below the shredding tempers of a desert wind.

Omnipotent fires of archaic Gods
Charring the souls of petty architects
Slaved under their jeweled prophets
Were not the scribe's footnotes of time.