The Letter
By Brian Sankarsingh | SGP Co-Founder
Personal letters can be considered obsolete. A relic of the past. But in that past, they were the harbingers of good and unwelcome news. A person who was expecting a letter would check the post box every day.
His smell lingers in the musty bedroom air His side of the bed still unslept A thought begins to gnaw, a doubt, a fear One she was still unwilling to accept. He’d been spending more time away from her Work consumed all of his time Now she felt all alone without succor Marriage without reason, love without rhyme. One thirty a.m. the door quietly closes A fear grips her heart like a vice Doubt like a wild monstrosity grows Would her heart pay the final price? She hears him moving around in the kitchen A beer bottle cap falls to the floor She held her breath to better listen And the doubt keeps on eating her core. It went quiet for an hour or more Did he fall asleep on the chair? Not a sound, not a breath or a snore Now the doubt consumed even the air. Quietly she went down the stairs Maybe she would just bring him to bed In this moment she realizes her fears Through a letter on the counter unread.
Bio: Brian Sankarsingh is a Trinidadian-born Canadian immigrant who moved to Canada in the 1980s. He describes himself as an accidental poet, with a passion for advocacy and a penchant for prose, an unapologetic style, he offers his poetry as social and political commentary.
Absolutely loved this. I felt it viscerally, a knot of apprehension in the gut, tightening with each line…
I tend to think and process things very literally, so poetry that’s super abstract or symbolic often goes over my head and I don’t get it. I appreciate a piece like this because it's like being hit in the boxing ring. The question isn’t “Did you get it?” because there’s no way you could not get it, the question becomes, “Were you left unaffected, dazed, wobbly, or were you knocked out?”