The Rumour

God's P.O. box is in the sky, said someone, and from there

he watches us

and monitors our movements. WHEW, we think

he's got this, so we write him fan mail, knotted charms

against the anxious blankness.

The spaceships could not find him, but

they haven't seen it all, we say,

he might be very far, or hidden well, and so

we write to him, as to an absent figure, roughly stubbled.

One day he might come back, we say. Until that day

we must behave.

We send our letters fastpost, skywards, tie them

to the legs of birds, hurl them upwards on the gusts of

roaring beauty, fold paper planes from hymn books

and make fragile paper parachutes that rise

in glowing exhalations from the beach at dusk.

They pile in vast unsorted swathes, the paper yellows, and

the sky rats nibble at the corners.

Some strays fall back to us below,

marked Return to Sender in an unfamiliar hand.

We persist.

The clouds grow heavy with unease. Great drifts

of yearning songs and tight-mouthed questions from the hopeless

weigh them down; the earth begins to sweat.

He reads them all, we say, he's busy and he loves us,

shooting pointed gazes at the sky through narrowed eyes.

We forget about our world below;

we forget the someone's name;

we forget our breathing bodies, writing to a rumour,

hands clutched round jealous pencils.

Thank you for your consideration, we write in darkened rooms.

We look forward to your reply.

Rosalind Atkinson 2014