And so I have to sit and stare

At a tiny little two-inch square

A photograph of a dream I had

Like one who is entirely mad.

There might be life outside this place

Where I worship your tiny paper face.

Dear Rhoda,

My roommate thinks he is going to get to read the letter you wrote me and read the poem but he won’t get to read that one. I have read it a lot. I think it means a lot. I think we should forget about that weekend.

I wish I could come to the wedding but I have to stay home at Christmas. My parents need me there. My father is in a lot of trouble now about money and I’m going to be helping him.

I got an A on the paper. Then my teacher asked me to stay after class. He said, Mr. Martin, I would never have picked you out to be a fan of Dorothy Parker.

I love you,
Malcolm

Dear Rhoda,

Did you get the letter I wrote to you before Christmas? I mailed it to your address in Dunleith? I thought you would write back to me if you got it. Let me know if you got it.

Yours truly, love,
Malcolm

(unmailed)

Dear Malcolm,

This letter will not be mailed. I don’t think I can get back into that stuff we were doing. I’ll get back into it and I’ll be so happy I think my feet don’t touch the ground and the whole world will be so beautiful it’s like a place I never saw before except heard about in Wallace Stevens’ poetry or maybe Wordsworth’s or maybe Housman, or “Wild Peaches” by Elinor Wylie:

When the world turns completely upside down

You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore

Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;

We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town,

You’ll wear a coonskin cap and I a gown

Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold colour.

Lost, like our lotus-eating ancestor,

We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.

The winter will be short, the summer long,

The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,

Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;

All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.

The squirrels in their silver fur will fall

Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot. . . .