for emily dickinson

The horses' heads were
torwards
the sea. Emily had never been
there,
and she needed a blue
inoculation
before she could go to heaven.

From a distance, she did not
recognize
the waves--they wore bodies
in her dreams. She walked
closer,
and suddenly, the white sands
sang their numbers
to the roots of her hair, which
stood
to be counted.

Emily stared at the sun
with unmelted eyes. She ran
down the pier until the planks
in reason fell away and then
she dove,
into the waves where brown
girls
bobbed and sank, where
brown girls
swallowed Proteus just to feel
a change
inside them. Emily said, "I
know this place," and rose out of the
water,
her white dress weeping.