Things I think about when I am sick

Lying in bed today,
I was thinking about crumpled envelopes and driving directions.
I was thinking about how to get to you.
Well, actually, I was thinking about the return—
how to avoid the traffic,
which streets to take to miss the most insufferable lights.
Because, you know, at that time of day, the
traffic is always terrible.
And some of the streetlights in this town
seem to have been put there by
sneering civil engineers—
scientific malcontents,
determined to prove that there is no such thing as eternity,
and if there is an eternity, it won’t be fun.

So I was thinking I would take Speedway
back up from 29th or 31st (or whatever the name of that street is).
I can never remember the name of that street.

It was a nice distraction—
to think of maps, instead of empty beds,
of streetlights, instead of crumpled envelopes.
Crumpled envelopes,
that were filled, at one point,
with laughing, sunlit pictures,
love letters, birthday cards, promises and sincerity.
Now they are lying in a pile at the foot of my bed…
Post-marked, empty vessels,
Ready for the recycling bin.