Friday, April 24, 2020

Junk Mail. By Cord Moreski


Even now you tell me  
that whenever you see it all  
scrunched inside your mailbox 
the glossy advertisements  
for credit cards and personal loans  
or coupons for fast food chains 
and life insurance policies 
it gives you this strange sigh of relief  
as if you were nine years old again.  
  
That year you held your breath  
whenever the postman arrived. 
Your father always passed out  
on the couch from working  
the graveyard shift at QuickChek  
while your mother fanned out  
the envelopes like a poker hand  

to see if it was pork and beans  
or leftover spaghetti
for the fourth night in a row,  
or if the batch of cookies baking  
in the oven was for you  
or for the lender as a sign of mercy  
before they eventually took your house.  

It all taught you the difference  
between the victory of a battle  
and the victory of a war  
before any history textbook 
or grandfather with a purple heart could.  

And on those days of just “junk” 
you’d watch from the kitchen  
as your mother toasted with a sigh  
while you tended the oven for her 
making sure the cookies didn’t burn. 










Cord Moreski is a poet from New Jersey. His work has been featured in As It Ought To Be Magazine, Alien Buddha Press, Silver Birch Press, Eunoia Review, The Rusty Truck Press, and several other publications. He is currently working on a new project for late 2020. You can follow Cord here: https://www.cordmoreski.com

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