paper boats

I send you a fleet

of paper boats,

folded the way

I used to

at ten –

pages torn

from school notebooks,

lined margins

still showing.

your name

rides the crease,

on each of them,

letters washed pale,

almost gone.

let them sink

one by one,

carrying

what I couldn’t say,

into the sea –

already crowded

with the graves

of words.