Today Punam from dVerse Poets Pub throws down the gauntlet and picks up her own pen to demonstrate the dying, healing, convalescing art and craft of letter-writing.

She shares poems about letter-writing or in the form of letters. And I’m reminded of how “proper” letter-writing has been a bore, chore and even an “implore” for me, now fast turning into an impossibility as my dexterity has plummetted after I contacted Lyme’s disease in 2019.

Fortunately some of my friends still rejoice in sending handwritten letters to me, and a few can even decipher my scrawl enough to enjoy receiving my replies.

The following faithful doggerel can speak for itself of unarticulated intimacy and frustration between partners changing, and growing at different speeds, and is a labour-of-love-letter in its own way.

Literally love-hate

My dear, we can't negotiate
because you won't oblige
to join me at the table
of counsellor or sage.

you ply me with endearments;
seem not to understand
my lust for soul-connection,
for tendered lip and hand.

we fight like hungry siblings,
resent the other's strength;
and (voicing your behalf here)
we tire to talk at length.

our anger is a spectre;
a spectacle yours be
mine has me hurling plectra.
striking a pose - d'you see?

© Kathy Labrum McVittie 22 November 2023

PS on ‘plectra’ from SkillshareBlog

“The Latin word plectrum comes from the Greek plēktron, which means “something to strike with”—and that’s exactly what it is: a small flat object used to pluck or strum the strings of an instrument. 

“Plectra (the plural of plectrum) are used to play the mandolin, guitar, bass guitar, banjo, oud, sitar, and many other stringed instruments. The main purpose of a plectrum is to protect the fingers and fingernails, as well as to produce a louder, brighter tone.”