The Inbox

There were new messages for him today
which had deceived spam filters
now seen smoking out his ageing Inbox 
stinging confidence 
like a wife's yawn during foreplay
exposing his insides like an x-ray
SEXY GIRLS & HOT HUNNIES! 
pricked at far-flung youth
swelling desires thought deleted
and he scrolled, bit-lipped
imagining Freud nodding, with his back to him
as words tumbled like elephants
to this bare room where
YOUNG BLONDES IN YOUR AREA!
shouldered through walls, thick as paper
in which he cowered
 

But there, in the dead light of a laptop
an email lay half-eaten to the sharks
strangled in the phishing net, lungless 
yet still breathing 
two lines sent from an old sweetheart, who
once used pens and paragraphs
and knew where he lived
her handwriting 
sand footprints
of a fading memory
before postmen delivered Junk mail
in heaving bags, with hollow whistles
after morning was gone