Postwoman

By Nicola Healey

For Di

‘Postmen like doctors go from house to house.’
                                   – Philip Larkin, ‘Aubade’

You’ve barely stopped working since it all began,
dispensing slips of life and parcels, and taking them, 
allowing the heart-lift of a hand-written letter.

The sound of the letterbox is like an email ping,
but imagine a world with only pings, no paper.
In an automated age, you are a human link.

You are the only person we’ve seen in months
at the doorway, checking all is well inside. 
You never tire of us, though you must be tired,

for you walk miles every day like an athlete;
a fleet-footed messenger, keeping our lifeblood
circulating, as through a maze of arteries.

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Written Word ‘Hand’ poems