signed, your most affectionate friend and servant

I am angry at the tea
because it worked
with the dried and cracked peppermint leaves
and though I cannot read (the words
laugh at me and blur into one another),
I cannot sleep.

the letters of some, from long ago
stay with me asleep or awake
but those people are gone. They've died.
What good are her letters to me now?
I cannot answer and tell her
not to surrender to her sorrows
or how tomorrow might be different
if she tries.
she's died, the wretch-
a punishment for me who has advice
that no one will accept.