The mailbox on the corner was a blue steel monument to the idea that somebody cared enough to write. The mailbox stood on the sidewalk like a small blue soldier and the soldier's job was to hold your letter until the postal worker came and the postal worker came at two in the afternoon and the postal worker took the letters and the mailbox was empty and the mailbox stood on the corner empty until somebody else cared enough to write.

The mailbox had a mouth. The mouth was a slot and the slot was wide enough for a letter but not wide enough for a hand. You could put your thoughts into the mailbox but you could not take them back. The mailbox was a one-way door. The letter went in and the letter was gone and the letter was on its way to somebody who might read it or might not and the not knowing was the cost of the stamp.

The mailbox was the last analog broadcast system on the Lower East Side. You wrote words on paper and you put the paper in an envelope and you put the envelope in a slot and the words traveled across the city or across the country or across the ocean at the speed of a truck and the truck was not fast. The truck was reliable. The truck did not crash. The truck did not lose your password. The truck carried your letter the way a river carries a leaf. Slowly. Certainly. Without asking where the leaf wanted to go.

Nobody writes letters anymore. The mailbox is still on the corner and the mailbox is empty. The mailbox stands there like a phone booth without a phone. The mailbox is a monument to a habit the world abandoned and the monument is blue and the monument is steel and the monument is waiting for a letter that is never coming. The mailbox does not know that email exists. The mailbox is waiting the way I am waiting. Standing on a corner expecting somebody to walk by who is already taking a different route.

I played guitar next to the mailbox on the corner of Rivington and Clinton and the mailbox never complained about the volume. The mailbox was the most tolerant neighbor I ever had. The mailbox stood there through every song and every rant and every argument with a cop and the mailbox said nothing because the mailbox's mouth only opened one way. The mailbox could receive but the mailbox could not respond. The mailbox was the best audience I ever had because the mailbox listened to everything and said nothing and sometimes that is exactly what a musician needs. An audience that holds your sound without sending it back.