Google Mail

wraps up my emails like foetuses
curled up inside each other.
Twins consume twins;
Too many teeth and not enough fingers.

Replies folded inside replies;
buried so deep within its digital womb
they almost vanish comple t e l y

Orphan emails,
Accidental abortions;
My inbox has choked on them all.

From time to tine I wonder about all those
Secrets hushed into near silence,
Voices without mouths -
Though not now,
Or not much

Like when you wanted to tell me
To wait
A little while longer

The poem I sent you
After the second time we met;
The one about bile and buttercups

The words you used to describe the time we spent apart;

The messages you might have sent but didn’t -
about how you were sorry -
Or how it was my fault and how I should be sorry

So much written but never read,
Stacked up and squashed into electronic mush.

Uncounted still births
reabsorbed into digital creases

Defeated, deflated, but never
Ever
Deleted.

Rather than looking for more words
I’ve been searching

for the right
shade of green

I plan to change the skin of my inbox,
Just in case it wants to spit something out.