Dear Mrs. Whitehall,
Thank you for sending me a letter. You didn’t have to do that, but I’m glad you did. I keep reading it over and over while I’m sitting here in the hospital. They say I have to lie in this bed a week. I don’t see why, but I don’t have it in me to walk out.
Mrs. Vincenzo visits when she’s not working. Roy, my daddy, only came once, but it was enough. He did say I could stay in the house with my baby, only he called Little Sal another B word. I’m telling myself he will learn to love him, but he’s still learning to love me, so it might take a while.
I don’t like owing anybody anything, especially someone I don’t know, but you said you like to listen, so I figure maybe you got some time you’d like to fill. Would you mind listening to me? I got some things I want to get off my chest, and no one to tell them to. I’ve been talking to Little Sal, but I shouldn’t place such burdens on him, even if he doesn’t know up from down. The morning before Little Sal was born, I got a V-mail from Toby. It made me cry, but I didn’t know why. I waddled over to Mrs. Vincenzo’s to show her, but then the pain started. Maybe that was nature’s way of telling me to keep my mouth shut. I haven’t shown anyone else, but I’m going to write it out so you can read it, and tell me what you think it means. I didn’t shine in school, so I don’t trust my own understanding.
Toby’s Poem
In the days of boyhood, summer came late
and the fan hummed low
and I couldn’t see past the sunflowers
Sometimes, here, in the damp heat
I wake and think I’m there.
But the hum doesn’t drone
it grows
Airplanes, not out of boyhood dreams,
a nightmare sort of use
Clearing rows of passage
by massacring tall flowers
Spreading seeds of hate
for violent gardens
The enemy, my shadow,
Looked at me
loomed in me
and though my gun won
I lost
I will wake soon
in my summer room
And all this blood
Won’t ever have happened.
Something’s not right, Mrs. Whitehall. At first I thought he’d written a poem for the baby, but no one would read this to a child. I’d like to get your take on things. It doesn’t seem right to ask Mrs. Vincenzo.
Thank you kindly.
Regards,
Roylene Dawson