Three Poems
Imagining Emily Dickinson in 1852
She’s thinking of song—
dividing the day into eight
juicy bits,
into sixty little books
of six folded sheets,
“always in ink,”
the worm of oblivion
tucked neatly into one
gnawed corner—
polishing some lapidary
idea of a frayed eternity.
Her hair is red
feathers—a robin’s
breast (wary little bird
binding us to her
paint.) Her
wandering pupil stares
sideways to infinity;
it is morning where she is—
the sun passing
like a swollen eye
across the crowded
graveyard.
Sewing Box
Half-hidden, her thimble,
little dimpled well.
What residue
of her salt
does it contain?
(The chary bird in me
loves to sip from it.)
Measuring tape, scissors…
Enough equipment here
for the tedious Fates.
Yes, here is her favorite
pincushion, the sharps
and darners stuck in it
like small, heroic
swords.
Sacred Love
The trees practice it
all winter—the honey
locusts, with their spiritual
thorns, their dry pods
of sweetness,
the death pale birches
like bony priestesses
and the deflowered flower
girl plums, naked
and wind-thrashed,
in bruise colors.
But, what ascetic hermit
can resist disporting
when April unbosoms!
one of Vermeer’s women,
dressed up in such lush
tapestries, lavish embroideries,
brazen perfumes—