After breakfast, in my silly slippers and cotton pajamas,
I shuffled out into the cold of morning to retrieve my mail.
Among the coupons I’ll never use and advertisements I’ll never read,
Was a letter with a smiley face where the return address should have been.
Starting to shiver slightly, I opened it,
And though my nose was retreating from its duties in the cold,
Artificial coconut spewed from the envelope
And nostalgia dropped twenty bucks in my pocket.
I find the letter to be from an old high school buddy,
With his trademark talent for observing the obvious, he writes,
“Here’s a picture of me when I was younger.”
And I think, aren’t they all? Boy, it’s cold.
Working my way through the wordy letter,
I felt like I was trying to finish a cough drop.
At first it seemed interesting and personal,
But it quickly became sugar-coated medicine.
Still standing half-dressed, and beginning to freeze completely,
And having to read lines like, “carefully layered, haphazardly tousled,
And loaded with sex appeal,”
It became increasingly hard to maintain my interest
Eventually, my teeth began to chatter,
And after reading, “create the illusion of having broad shoulders
By developing those muscles,”
I lost interest.
Maybe because the letter had no personal meaning,
Or maybe because it was cold outside.
Or maybe it was the pajamas.