Pamplemousse

The Student Literary Journal of Vermont State University

The Queen Cannot Reply to Your Email

Poetry

 
She is in the Shetland Islands
or possibly Shangra-La
an undisclosed location, a castle
your pleas can never reach
 
The Queen is comparing tiny diamonds
with a magnifying glass or demanding
her pale hands (you loved them beside
the Shalimar) be bathed in almond milk
 
and oatmeal and that the serving wench
Bessie scratch her lofty nose
Besides there is the matter
of the Ostend Manifesto
 
so it is with sincere though slight
regret that we, the servants
of the hidden palace, we muslin-
clad inferiors, inform you that
 
the Queen cannot reply to your email

 
 

REID MITCHELL is a New Orleanian teaching in China. More specifically, he is a Scholar in Jiangsu Province’s 100 Foreign Talents Program, and a Professor of English at Yancheng Teachers University. He is also Consulting Editor of CHA: AN ASIAN LITERARY JOURNAL. His poems have been published by CHA, ASIA LITERARY REVIEW, IN POSSE, and elsewhere and he has a collection due out from a small press in Berlin. Way back in the 20th century, he published the novel A MAN UNDER AUTHORITY. He also had a separate career as an historian of the American Civil War.