Molly, if you read this poem,
I have your three snapshots.
What a lot of white-shirted redheads
in plaid skirts, red and black,
rioting in the school auditorium,
each in her seat. Are you
the only poised one, straight-
gazing us out of that horde?
Or at the Diet Coke machine
in beaded braids
and dream-catcher earrings
clinched by a girl friend
grinning too hard?
Sure, it’s none of my business.
But your personal stuff was ditched
into the neighborhood book swap box.
Did your friends spill out of
the expectant parents manual?
The sci-fi novelettes set?
One of the two Funk & Wagnalls?
(And say, who wants to read
old encyclopedia chunks?)
Molly, you precisely wrote
for these to be please returned.
I’ll hang onto them in case you find me.
And if you run into Lois, tell her
I also found her “Happy 21” birthday card
from Edith and Allen, cast away
with your chums. It has a lady mouse
in a polka-dot dress and apron
hefting a lovely bunch of wildflowers.
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Click here to read David P. Miller on the origin of the poem.
Image: “Three years of correspondence” by Lenore Edman, licensed under CC 2.0.
