I enclose
two dollars and fifty cents
of pre-paid envelope to stuff
with any goddamned thing
the way the moon pried
open last night’s sky
or Catherine’s smile
split the morning light

or even love, which is just
the way we hold everything,
grief and fear as well as
joy, the mystery squirming

in our embrace.  Hey! walking
the dog I saw for the first time
this morning the way
pine cones grow,

straight up, perched precariously
at the center of each branch,
army green, they looked
like soft grenades that might

explode at my touch.

Victoria Pynchon has previously published her poetry in Poet Lore, Kalliope, The Ledge, and Transformation; her short fiction in the sadly defunct Kudzu and her literary non-fiction in the Southern New Hampshire University Journal.  She blogs at the Settle It Now Negotiation and IP ADR Blogs.  Her professional articles on mediation and negotiation have been widely published in the legal press and law journals since she abandoned the rights and remedies business (litigation) to enter the interests and consensus community (mediation).  She founded the r.kv.r.y. literary journal in the Fall of 2004 in gratitude for all those who had so freely given to her in the preceding ten years of sober life.

(Letter to Joe w/enclosures was previously published in Kalliope)