Mailbox Smile Poem

 
This is the poem
I’m going to put in an envelope
and stick in the mailbox
with the junk mail and bills
so when my wife comes home
from her day at the office
she’ll find it in there,
read it, and smile.
Other men have vocations,
things they need to do,
but my only important job is this:
to make one woman smile.
I’m paid handsomely for this work:
a home, a beautiful daughter,
and a city full of rivers,
but most of all,
sometimes, that smile
that lives in her surprised eyes.

***

James Valvis has placed poems or stories in Ploughshares, River Styx, Arts & Letters, Southern Indiana Review, Natural Bridge, The Sun, and many others. His poetry was featured in Verse Daily. His fiction was chosen for Sundress Best of the Net. His work has also been a finalist for the Asimov’s Readers’ Award. A former US Army soldier, he lives near Seattle.