Joanna Gilman Hyde

The Hawk Corner Room 2:22pm

I was A Child of Letters

Valentines to Grand Parents

folded-over butterfly stationary to A Canadian Boyfriend

round pink stationary to My Mother from My Father’s Farm

I wrote to The Rockland County Journal News

when I was eight going on nine

thanking The Valley Cottage Fire Department

for saving Our Woods from a children’s brushfire

a page of loose-leaf in The 5th Grade to My Father

telling Dad to pay Mom a hundred dollars

a page of loose-leaf in The 6th Grade to A Boy

Who ripped it in half

& into My Teens

to Cousins, Friends

Boys I went to bed with

or wanted to

I wrote letters

to Men in executive offices

in My Early Twenties

I wrote & I wrote

all My Life So Far

like magic I am A Woman of Letters

They have preceded Me

Up Here in My Beautiful Corner Room

looking out over The Atlantic Ocean

with My Husband home from work

& a claw-less Siamese

pawing at The Door