For+Emily+(Dickinson)+-+Maureen+Owen


 * For Emily (Dickinson)**

The girl working the xerox in the stationary store has a "thing" for one of the customers "I'm in love!" she blurts to complete strangers buying stamp pad ink. "Am I shaking? Last week when he came in I stapled my thumb." It's not just a shift in season but a hormone that sets the trees off too from plain green they go cheeks flushed & dropping everything! Like the baby bashing through them hooting "More!" & the radio announcing "It's a Sealy Posturepedic morning!" the landscape's gone silly with abundance of motif where the tossed baby Plunks into the damp pyramid & is gone From the base a small scuffed shoe chanting "Leafs! Leafs!" Here is all the drama of the emperor's flight! Imperial dragon robes swept up porcelains scattered & the eerie glazed stillness the soft mist Thudding where the stately picnic had been. Is it a theory of numbers or just Quantity that lifts us up from under the armpits with Fred Astaire signing in grand finale crescendo "It doesn't matter where you get it as long as you got it!" O furious Excesses! She set her tough skiff straightaway into the sea for love of danger! tho all the birds have lost their cover & You O Bald October I knew you when you still had hair!

//Maureen Owen - 1980//