Ode to the Dickinson Line When it comes, the Landscape listens--
Yes, you realized the affliction
of surging years
when I woke to find
I could not move but moved
to make children toast,
send them out the door
to other rooms in other buildings.
Yes, you could alleviate
the flashes when
I curled under my desk
and did not want to rise
ever again, except that ever
shoved, jabbed, needled. Sweating,
I rose from crumpled papers.
Flush, I turned to wash chicken.
Slice the breast into pieces.
Every day that day. Every
year until the fever of age
evaporated into missed. Yes,
small comfort was enough.
the Landscape listens the ghost of a pantoum written after reading Dickinson
When I go, the furniture hisses,
the pantry looks bereft.
Shades come to nothing
and the clock never ticks.
Blinds come to forever
when forever is a hole.
Did I say the clock won't tick
because her children have grown old?
A Monday Morning Monostich
When I go, the chair sobs. Her children have grown cold.
