Emily Dickinson wrote
A poem a day
To quiet the beautiful rage
To manage the hauntings and dreams unfurled
To express thoughts that ping in the brain
Like a dropped penny on a hardwood floor
Beneath her feet
In white dresses, searching through those
Wild nights
Can I hear her now?
Quiet now, my father is coming
Quiet now, the wind clatters the thick panes
As a little girl
Death came a knockin’
Like Jehovah Witnesses on a field day
Choked fists pounding the front door
The bedroom door
The pantry with its boxed secrets and packaged sadness
We weren’t sure you’d be home but we’ll be
Damned
If you don’t pay up every time
Stop
Your message was clear, boy
Needn’t repeat it, boy
We’ll see you around the way
You think after years of scraping fish bellies
I’d actually beg?
Stop
Two girls hop scotch on cracked concrete
A tune spinning from their small, chapped lips
“Lose me once, lose me forever
You weren’t that important
You weren’t that clever”
Once the rain hits, this chalk lexicon washes away
Words were never so temporary
Their bright colors can’t prevent the cleansing
And little girls have to grow up sometime
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