Dear local MP, a while ago I vividly remember
writing you a very short note to say ‘fuck it, I quit!’.
I licked the stamp and dropped the envelope
in the box number eighty four, school lane, first left,
by the traffic lights.
I ran back to my flat, unplugged the TV
and read ‘War and Peace’ under the duvet covers.
By the time I got to page seven hundred and twenty I’d realised
the war was not the most important thing in a man’s life.
I started to feel a bit sorry for myself as
I had nothing to be angry about anymore.
But now, coming to think of it, you gracefully got over the insult
and posted back a signed Christmas card.
It arrived in January but let’s not stop at details.
I kept at my book for over a month.
The French got stuck in Siberia,
the women mourned, the men went back home
as they did in those days.
And then a neat Valentine appeared
hand-delivered by a Romanian postman.
Your concern for my love life brings me to tears.
There is nothing worse than rejected love.
Maria Stadnicka
Illustration Nick Victor