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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v102) (the January 2012 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book It Was All Preordained (a Down in the Dirt collection book)		get the 320 page January-April 2012 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

enjoy this writing in the ISBN# spiral-bound datebook (released January 2013) the 2013 poetry date book			get this poem collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book After the Apocalypse (poetry edition) (the 2012 poetry collection book)		get this poem collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Wet Letter Office

John Grey

There’s a dread to coming home on
a rainy day, letters poking out of
the mailbox, soaked to their paper
skin. With catalogues, it’s a welcome
revenge and books are normally
card-board protected but it’s the
personal stuff that I extract so gingerly,
pathetically, like ushering homeless
waifs in out of the weather.
It’s not just a case of drying them
out on a counter-top. Already the
ink runs. Consonants leak off in all directions.
Vowels blend into one another
or ooze apart, seep in two.
Envelopes shred in my fingers.
Missives hold their sentences
under water like they’re drowning
kittens. My eyes wade through
the mess and don’t know if I’m
dragging out the drenched corpse
of love, cry for help, news of old
friends or please send me more money.
Even the addresses are blurred
to the point where nobody could
live at them. All I know is that
this is correspondence meant for me,
surely lucid in its infancy but now
a quagmire of bleeding scrawl, inky nonsense.
I sit back in my kitchen chair,
surrounded by failed communication.
Rain beats its garbled Morse code
on my rooftop. What I’ll never know is closing in.

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