The Forensics Of A Letter Poem by Alexandre Nodopaka

I have this hefty collection of letters.
Mostly hand written.
A lost art I'd say in our Internet age.

Each sheet of paper filled
with words legibly delineated
forming intelligent phrases

from a time past. A time of war
and absence and doubtful returns.
Most letters scribbled blue or black

on plain white paper or many on
torn pages from student
lined notebooks by fingers trained

not in literature but in marksmanship.
The meaning of the contents
in adolescent defiant outlook dealing

with blind bravery and immortality.
Other notes with outright lies and
cover-ups of foreign infatuations

and loves that could be read in the
DNA of the glue sealing the
envelope flap and the postage stamps

and the other femme fatale's
rouge lip sticks. Those were the real
and dangerous times.