Returned to Sender

Boomerang words thrown at the target,
Licked and spat
Flat on the page -
To be held and put in their place.

I write them in a letter to my love;
I send them slow like a male, in the mail,
In the belly of a snail,
A beast carrying post to the past.

She’ll smell my cheap aftershave,
Remember the expensive red wine she spilled
Into her mouth that night,
That night she left the bottle empty.

And she’ll remember the gentlemanly pecks I gave her cheeks
With aloof lips (dry and disappointed),
And maybe she’ll forget the unfriendlier boyfriend
She dumped me for.

If only she loved the caress of my words
As I do, as when I say
I do (I really do),
I will carry her over

But she returns all I send her,
Not even an echo whispers from beyond
Her final resting place:
The unmarked grave

Of our divided past.
A locked mailbox sits within a rock -
My messages are tangled, bent and broken
In the untranslatable wreckage of her car.