Discipline

(E. Dickinson)

  

Ink effaces her hands—

blemished and white—

smearing the precise manuscript.

The words come

like the happenings

in a dream recalled:

concrete, yet veiled

from their distinct meanings.

A semblance of form appears,

shaping narratives from

experiences imagined

perhaps, lived more

vividly through vicarious

maneuvers.  The maneuvers

that give way within

a moderately furnished room—

vistas of swirling ideas—

counter against walls,

blank and unresponsive.

The silence is only

an afterthought.

 

+

 

 

Pieces

 

A blank nursery,

occupied only by moonlight

entering through the upstairs window.

The nanny combs

the premises, praying that

her eyes have not manufactured

an illusion based on heightened fears.

Horizontal on the ground,

a ladder lies−

top, broken rung−

abandoned after a solitary purpose.

Circumventing Amwell,

groves of trees

prohibit the eye

from traveling far,

permitting the efficacy of

a deliberate act.