YESTERDAY WHEN I didn’t kiss

the IT guy, the whole world fell apart.

A staticky electricity

now fills the air as I wait on

a letter that might not ever arrive.

It’s been teeming down all week, windy

as hell, sideways rain. I wore leaky

boots so wet feet all day on Wednesday

and my umbrella broke on Thursday.
Footpaths are littered with abandoned

umbrellas like dead wet birds, over-

flowing bins. Trains are packed and steamy,

days are getting dark by four o’clock.

Good things do happen. A book cover

I illustrated arrives, I do

a little dance, the designer does

several, the author will dance a jig

when his copy arrives in the post.
But something else is still going on.

My All-Important Urgent Files dis-

appear. Digital mayhem ensues.

The typesetter wants the corrections

by fax or email. I try the fax;

it jams. When I try it again it

goes off like an alarm. I try turn-

ing it off and on again – and it

goes berserk. A fucking fax machine.
I give up and leave to meet my friends,

forget to take my new umbrella.

Walking from Central to the dumpling

place I keep seeing mail vans. I think

of the letter I long for and dread

that doesn’t seem on its way to me.

Of course I miss the dumpling place and

walk into a pub, walk back on out,

find the right restaurant and join my friends.
We eat dumplings and talk about how

the IT guy has a crush on me.

My friends say it’s because he wasn’t

at work today that everything went

haywire. I wonder if he’s thinking

about me, I hope he’s not thinking

about me. Is this IT madness

all bad karma for rejecting him

sent out from the ether straight to me?
I leave the restaurant and it’s raining.

I get stuck at Central for an hour

waiting for

              the train on platform nine-

teen terminates here please do not join

this train    the train on platform 19

terminates here    the train on platform

19 terminates here please do not

join    do not join this train    on platform

                                please do not join    do not join this train
At the other end I walk through rain,

I think of the train I’m trying to

get off, wondering where I’m going,

how I hope and dread there’s a letter

waiting for me at home. I hope it

says the things the IT guy told me.

I would marry you in a heartbeat.

Can we get a dog, even a cat?

Who cares what has happened in the past

what happens is

                                now walking the wet

night street, I think of how it will end.

There will be no letter waiting and

I’ll curl up in bed with the two cats,

I’ll think of my new painting of my

small bright candle in the other room

and its warm steady flame in the dark.

I open the letterbox.

              It’s there.
I take it out and bring it inside.

I hold the letter but can’t open

it yet because everything will change.

I sit down to write. I draft this poem.

Shortly when I open it, will I

destroy it? Will I destroy this poem?

I see the stamp’s a rose that says LOVE.

A bug’s half squished on the envelope,

moving.

              I know how you feel, buddy.