Penny Postcard, 1902 (No Cancellation), by Kathryn Kulpa

Penny Postcard, 1902 (No Cancellation)
 
Marion Heaton signed only her name
On a Valentine postcard. Time can never explain
What you meant to say, Marion, but left unsaid
On a Valentine postcard. Was your lover dead?

Were you left at the altar? Did he lead you to shame?
Yellow roses, not red; only ashes, no flame.
A language of flowers, flirtation by fan
And history tells us what history can,

But Marion Heaton had nothing to say
To her might-have-been lover that Valentine’s Day.
On a Valentine postcard, unmailed and unclaimed,
Marion Heaton signed only her name.

Kathryn Kulpa

This poem first appeared in KYSO Flash.
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Read Kathryn's story, "Jessie's Egg" elsewhere in The Ekphrastic Review.

Read Kathryn's story, "Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted," here.

Kathryn Kulpa is the author of Who's the Skirt? (Origami Poems Project), a micro-chapbook; Girls on Film (Paper Nautilus), a flash chapbook, and Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted, forthcoming from New Rivers Press. Her stories have appeared in Five South, Monkeybicycle, Smokelong Quarterly, and Wigleaf. Kathryn is a librarian and a flash editor for Cleaver magazine.