Letters (Frances Richey)

I get a few things from this poem. One, the obvious, is the great, personal value of a handwritten letter - not the things, the presents it comes with. Two is the stretched-farther-than-thought-possible bonds between the mother and the son. Three is the difference between part one and part two of the poem. How in part one it's all memory and "not-quite". There is an expectation. It sets you up for dread, knowing that the son is at war.

Stanza two begins along the same thread. "Last Mother's Day, when/he was incommunicado,/nothing came." You begin to worry. But then the package comes! Like N, you could care less about the actual contents of the package. N wants the letter - the sweat, the hand's contact - pieces of her son. Her son is so far, but in a letter she has connection with him. She can be close to him through the letter.

Favorite line: "the salt from his hand,/the words."