THIS IS A LETTER
By Rebecca Dunham
This is a letter to the worm-threaded earth.
This is a letter to November, its gray bowl of sky riven by black-branched trees.
A letter to split-tomato skins, overripe apples, & a flock of fruit flies lifting
from the blueing clementines’ wood crate.
To the broken confetti of late fall leaves.
This is a letter to rosemary.
This is a letter to the floor’s sink & creak, the bedroom door’s torn hinge
moaning its good-night.
This is to the unshaven cheek.
To cedar, mothballs, camphor, & last winter’s unwashed wool.
This is a letter to the rediscovered,
to mulch, pine needles, the moon, frost, flats of pansies, the backyard,
hunger, night, the unseen.
This is a letter to soil, thrumming as it waits to be turned.
This is a letter to compost, eggshell’s bone-ash chips, fruit rinds curved like
fingernails, & stale chunks of bread.
A letter to the intimate dark—mouth-warm & damp as a bed.
This is a letter to the planet’s scavenging lips
