the postman’s privilege
most typewriters spit out
that exact decibel
like the coughing silencer
of an assassin’s weapon
or the sound of the postman’s bike
through the walls of my boardinghouse room
through the walls
the postman is my assassin
blah, blah, blaaaaah, blaaaaah, blaaaaaaah
the maddest allegro to haunt me,
I dare not look out
I am a ghost of my own doing
waiting
for the knock-backs from editors
for the “we’d like to pass your work on to the senior literary editor
before we make a decision”
for the debt collectors
and finally
the letter that says,