The Unsaid

On my table / a pile of letters / not yet replied to / the earliest dated / three years before. / One evening I decide / the time has come / to deal with them all. / Letters from poets / more lyrical than I / requesting advice, / letters from institutions / inviting me to speak / on communication / or the use of art... / from an insurance company / a reminder explaining / I had overlooked / the obligatory premium / against natural disasters, / a birthday card. // Among the post unanswered / two letters / from close friends. / The handwritings, / one fat and one thin, / not easy to decipher, / yet over the years / I had read them avidly / finding encouragement. / Now both are dead / their last letters / lost in a pile: / both killed themselves / one with a gun / one in a canal.