Poems on envelopes

Envelopes have now vanished in our lives,
From thresholds where they were a wind .

Their sounds were midnight’s movements
Like rats in alleyways glowing in tiny eyes.

At times they would bring a bone’s rattle,
A mother serious but actually dead inside.

They would bring creepy-crawly alphabet
Of rising aspirations from bottom to top.

A dead poet would write poems on backs,
Not meant to cross her death’s threshold.

(many poems of Emily Dickinson are found on the backs of envelopes)