She writes to tell him

life has turned to shit since she moved
south of the river. Not just the mosquitoes
but the mould getting into everything,
the books decaying before she gets
a chance to read them, the isolation.

Nothing is permanent. In winter
the river floods, eating away at its banks
& bringing down debris that weakens
jetties & bridges. In spring the tides attack
from the other direction, finishing
the job. The bridges break, the boats go
spinning away. You cannot swim in the bay.

The paper the letter is on is stained. She
points this out to him, identifying
the marks around the edges as those
that are caused by the moisture in the air;
the ones in the centre come from rain
dripping through the roof as she writes.

The rest, she tells him, are her tears.

from calligraphies. xPress(ed), Fall 2004