The Last Time I Heard From Her

She’d written me
on the backside label
from a can of Libby’s corn kernels
to tell me that she was doing well
and thought I’d love the idea
of getting corn-label greetings
instead of the forty-seven cent
postcard she bought her mom.

Some nights,
when I miss her most,
I’ll unfold the label,
watch the way her hand
pulled letters into words,
the blue-inked loop
of the a connecting
her misspelled greeting,
flinch at her their instead of there.

I wanted her anarchy back then,
to be the one that sent
scenic-viewed postcards
when the idea of home
became something she
wanted to touch again.

 

Lorraine Henrie Lins is a Pennsylvania county Poet Laureate and author of four books of poetry. She serves as the Director of New and Emerging Poets with Tekpoet and is a founding member of the “No River Twice” improvisational poetry troupe. Lins’ work appears in publications and collections, and a small graffiti poster in Australia. Born and raised in the suburbs of Central New Jersey, the self-professed Jersey Girl now resides outside of Philadelphia where she has learned to pump her own gas. www.LorraineHenrieLins.com

© Lorraine Henrie Lins

Photo Credit: © Brad Pict / Adobe Stock