Letters from the Inside, Michael Swango, #16

Dear KK---

Please excuse my use of pencil today and my extreme brevity.

I will call the two letters of mine that you received on 20 APRIL-and raise you one more! Because today I received three of your letters--what a marvelous surprise. (Ed.: This is so odd because I never write that often. I suspect the prison only allows them to mail letters on certain days and collects their mail and delivers it weekly.)

So I simply had to let you know that--clearly--a lengthy letter or two will be coming your way over the weekend. I haven't the time to go over all of them before this has to go in the outgoing mail, but let me again assure you on the very last line of your letter of MON 4/20 "Hope all my questions haven't irked you."

Most people don't mean it when they say they will discuss anything & everything--I do. Nothing you ask or say can bother me--because I want to know you, KK, as intensely and as well as possible--and am more than willing to allow you to do the same.

Mail is coming. Take care & talk to you gain very soon.

Yours,

Michael

P.S. A stunning poem by Deborah Digges lamenting her deceased husband-told through the stark reminders of his closets full of clothes. The lines regarding smell and shape are one I can totally relate to & understand...

[This was her third husband, who died in 03.]

***

[A poem by Deborah Digges from her collection TRAPEZE 04]

"Seersucker Suit," Deborah Digges

To the curator of the museum, to the exhibition of fathers,
to the next room from this closet of trousers
and trousers, full sail the walnut hangers of shirts,
O the great ghost ships of his shoes.
Through the racks and the riggings,
belt buckles ringing and coins in coat pockets
and moths that fly up from the black woolen remnants,
his smell like a kiss blown through hallways of cedar,
the shape of him locked in his burial clothers,
his voice tucked deep in his name,
his keys and the bells to his heart,
I am passing his light blue seersucker suit
with one grass-stained knee,
and a white shirt, clean boxers, clean socks, a handkerchief.