Self-portrait as Postage Stamp

I had purpose once. For a small price,

affixed and franked, I sailed

the world, gave wing to words,

knowing not wherefrom or to,

nor the intent or how I’d be received.

That was for others, the tongue

that applied me and the hand

that would unfold some meaning

from whatever message I had

tucked inside. Humble emissary,

though I bear the face of my nation,

mostly I lived duffled in darkness,

shuttled between a here and there,

scrutinized, sorted, then slipped

through a tight slot in a door.

Say what you will. I adhered.

Richard Foerster’s ninth collection, With Little Light and Sometimes None at All (Littoral Books, 2023), received a Gold Medal at the 2024 Independent Publishers of New England Book Awards. Other honors include the “Discovery”/The Nation Award, Poetry’s Bess Hokin Prize, the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, and two National Endowment for the Arts Poetry Fellowships, as well as two Maine Literary Awards for Poetry. His work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, The Gettysburg Review, Boulevard, The Southern Review, and The New England Review. He lives in Eliot, Maine.