Next week I have been invited to do a poetry reading at an art gallery on the theme of the history of communication. This piece came to mind as a possible.Hostile Correspondence
My grandmother's bingo pal was easy to frighten
Possessing an absolute fear of anything type-written.
Only officialdom typed letters and they was never good news.
The powers-that-be, authority, they all had control over Dilys.
From the Gas Board with their cut-offs to them that ran things
And she'd never forget those three wartime telegrams
Even if Dilys had read better, understood more than the gist of each letter
Handwritten meant friendly, usually family. Type-written just upset her.
Sometimes she stared for days before opening at arm's length,
Dropping typeface to the floor to read from a safe distance.
Test results from the doctor went unopened for ten months
Resulting in more typeface in local paper announcements.
Now there's Times New Roman italic on her headstone
And my grandmother goes to bingo alone.
© LS King
