Contemplating Emily And Effortless Living On The Drive Home
I want to live a life like Dickinson,
using capital letters to stroll with everything
there is, and was, and could be.
I want to hold hands with everything
that doesn’t, didn’t, or could never
feel the creases on my palms,
or comfort me in death –
How absurd it is, at least to me,
to contemplate a life where the Chesapeake
is swallowed in thirst,
grasping, with outstretched fingers, at the hulls
of the Monitor and Merrimac,
begging for swift, ironclad,
execution –
How preposterous my face would look,
distorted behind estuaries,
when the windshield of my Toyota
breaks over the crest of I-664
to find the Sun has been snuffed
out by endless ramps of spiraling
concrete –
How grim.
First published in Yes, Poetry, August 2017.