No Emily Dickinson
I suppose I
could have
done an
Emily Dickinson
taped my mouth
wrapped myself
up in a box
as the jealous professors watched
skins
thin as parchment, shelves
groaning from
bearing the torture
of false kudos, so
many heavy, empty
tomes in which
the words preach pre-
posterously to a
faithful they
this elves converted
now
discreetly, every
protocol observed
hammering in
the nails
for that
Jane-in-
a box ghost of a
witch banshee to
pour forth, launch
like ICBM on
monstrous spring
and sing softly like
a Shakespearean monster of
such small,
lethal, beautiful
things as
are not in your vocabulary,
not in your armory, not
yet Harvard-systemed or
Dewey-decimalled
no list of
ISBN numbers you
might read from the Moon.
No Emily that snared route
is one I will not be taking
— neither burial, nor
ocean bottle nor
scattering (as if
Sibyl) my leaves
to the winds
wherever they might blow, swirl
sky high, fall
die
or grow.
