Bunch of Letters in a Desk

Bunch of Letters in a Desk

I took a cardboard box into

The bedroom of the single

Spinster aunt who had lived

There apart from the family.

I carefully looked over her desk

And began placing the contents

Of the drawers

In the box.

I hoped I would find

A bundle of poems

Like Emily Dickinson’s

In the bottom Drawer.

I did not.

I found a corset,

A box of gloves,

And a neatly tied bundle of letters from 1937.

The letters were from a young woman

To this old aunt

When she, too,

Was a young woman.

At the end of the stack

Was a neatly folded clipping

From a newspaper.

I read this too.

It was about an airplane crash in Illinois;

Outside of Chicago in a thunderstorm

in 1937.

Everyone was killed.

I looked at the desk.

It was not

A fine desk but

It was in fine condition.

I looked at the bundle of letters.

They had fit so precisely in the

Right rear corner of the bottom

Drawer of the desk.

I decided I would sell the letters

With the desk and

Include enough family history

To carry out my plan.

I had just the client in mind.

She came back to me several days later.

“I think the two woman

Were in love.” she said.

I gave her the college year book

I found in the desk.

“I bet the pictures of both woman

Are in there.” I said.