In the important post office
We open Box 718 which is a drawer like the morgue,
People are either smiling or mad because of Xmas
There’s another birthday card for Sofia from Julius and Julia,
A Penny Saver, a bank statement and a bill from Weleda,
No letters, checks or invitations change the world
Lewis closes the mail drawer and drops his glasses,
One of the lenses flies out, he throws up his hands
–Bernadette Mayer, Midwinter Day, Part III
Now we’re almost ready, pity the race with the day if there’s a reason to be sad or thinking ahead of everything so as we’re leaving the house we must also be dying but you aren’t, with my gloves on I gulp what you left in your cup just in case something small would be all the difference, still carrying you as a talisman, I’m dying to get to the post office.
–Bernadette Mayer, Midwinter Day, Part II
Amal. Say, what’s going on there in that big house on the other side, where there is a flag flying high up and the people are always going in and out?
Watchman. Oh, there? That’s our new Post Office.
Amal. Post Office? Whose?
Watchman. Whose? Why, the King’s surely!
Amal. Do letters come from the King to his office here?
Watchman. Of course. One fine day there may be a letter for you in there.
Amal. A letter for me? But I am only a little boy.
–Rabindranath Tagore, Translated from Bengali to English by Devabrata Mukherjee (1914), The Post Office.
Dear Mr. Scrapbook 