Ahead of me leaning on the counter because he needs to, explaining his mail’s not being forwarded. His box empty. Bills unpaid. Grandchildren’s cards wandering somewhere in Texas. He repeats himself, stammers, gray hair in strands separating on his scalp like something thin and dry in wind. It’s calm here. The almost attentive clerk is nodding, the postmistress busy on the phone, in touch with a postmaster far across the land. Someone will know, will parse the lost words on a screen this man has never seen, his name drifting there, the shape- less sound of him opening like a vowel.
John Allman | Serious What’s Serious Contents | Mudlark No. 48 (2012)