Postcard from Kashmir

The mailbox is the poem’s only hint to the speaker’s actual geographical location. The word “mailbox” (Line 1) itself is more commonly used for a postbox in the United States and Canada; in the Indian subcontinent, the usual term is “letterbox” or “postbox.” Therefore, the term suggests the speaker is possibly in America, far from their homeland of Kashmir. The image of a postcard from Kashmir arriving in the mailbox juxtaposes the speaker’s current reality with the reality of their dreams and memories. The mailbox becomes a symbol of the poet’s current reality as well as the confinement of Kashmir. Kashmir “shrinks” (Line 1) into the mailbox, symbolizing that the poet’s memory of Kashmir is trapped in the past and their own expectations. The mailbox also evokes claustrophobia, confinement, and diminishment. This idea is further reinforced by the statement that the speaker’s home is a “neat four by six inches” (Line 2). Thus, the mailbox and the postcard signify a small, enclosed, mathematically precise space for the speaker’s memories of Kashmir. In truth, however, such stiff geometry cannot contain the speaker’s complex emotions about their homeland.