Letters

Sometimes, apart for months, years, we corresponded. I wrote too much; you wrote very little, and what you said seemed to say nothing. Pure froth – but was it that? There was a letter; something was written – and wasn’t that enough, that you’d addressed me?

Occasionally, a more serious letter would come, and you would speak with great brevity. I have been very unhappy. I’ve decided to leave my job. Absolute letters. Decisive ones, in which a new turn was announced. Why did you need to tell me? Why that need, to join what was said to what could not be said, the written to the unwriteable? For it was also in order for speech to rest in silence that you wrote, and that I wrote to you. To rest, to be addressed – speech was lightened by that crossing, by the letters that were sent over the body of England.

Sometimes, alone, I imagine my words are addressed to you. My words – not mine, and you as the guardian of my speech, just as I am the guardian of yours. Peace: I wanted them to rest in your silence, to find peace there. And then it is as though we are still young, that this day joins itself to another, half our lives ago.