kept by · the postmaster · — · noem central post · 1922–1944
one bound book of two hundred days, kept on the slope-top desk
behind the brass grille. the postmaster wrote in it with a
pen-knife handy: he sharpened the nib three times a day, and
the ink-blots in the margins all date from that quarter-second
of impatience.
the day-book holds, in plain figures, the small public life of
noem central: the post coming in,
the telegrams walked out, the
letters that nobody claimed.
one drawer beneath the counter, marked DEAD, holds the unsent
and undeliverable; the entry of the seventeenth of october 1934
shows that drawer's first count: forty-one letters · two
postcards · one ribbon.
what is missing: the seal-impression of the sealed letter on
that day at five o'clock; it has been cut out of the book with
a sharp blade and the page beneath shows a circular wound the
size of a sixpence.
field note · ink, the inside back every letter the public hands across the counter belongs first to itself and only second to the sender. read no addresses you do not need to read.
see also · old post · noem blue · returned to sender · undelivered telegram · stamps