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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
POST OFFICE ETCHINGS: 9. POSTAL INVESTIGATOR (C), by AUSTIN PHILIPS
First Line: Plaints about postal packets, gone
Last Line: She looks at me, reproachful, like some hunted fawn.
Subject(s): Etching; Letters; Postal Service; Postmen; Post Office; Mail; Mailmen
First Line: Plaints about postal packets, gone
Last Line: She looks at me, reproachful, like some hunted fawn.
Subject(s): Etching; Letters; Postal Service; Postmen; Post Office; Mail; Mailmen
'PLAINTS about postal packets, gone
Strangely astray
In northern town:
And so I am sent down,
At once to make essay
At solving minor mystery.
Immediately
I come to trace
Each loss to self-same place—
A certain shop. And one
Which, though it sell
Stationery, deals as well
In silver articles and things innumerable
Which women love to see sparkling on toilet-table.
It is, too, in its own small way,
A Post Office.
But I reflect
That postmen, who project
And plot and plan malpractice,
Are very rarely seen to steal
Stuff which they deal
With, personally:
They avoid, religiously,
What they collect each day.
Therefore I dream
Out careful, concrete scheme,
Write letter, which I ask sales-girl to pack
With pretty, purchased brush of well-wrought, silvern back.
This I address, and openly take
To office grille,
Where it is weighed
Forthwith, accepted, laid
Aside. The sales-girl still
Keeps her wide, bluebell eyes on me
Unceasingly.
Not as one bold,
But curious. Copper and gold
Her glistening hair. I make
My sauntering way
To the Head Office. Stay
Till there comes in the just-made town-collection,
Which is examined closely, under my direction.
No trace, no sign of packet. I
Take action. Thus,
With plain-clothes man,
(A trusty veteran
From London) go discuss
Affairs at shop. Find pained surprise
In bluebell eyes,
Which, injured, stare
Neath gold and copper hair.
I next, remorselessly
Brutal, presume
To search her home and room ...
Find brush, find fifty stolen trinkets; while, forlorn,
She looks at me, reproachful, like some hunted fawn.
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