notes for a posthumous letter to Emily Dickinson
–
Here I am, another 21st century nothing
housebound by rain, the birdbath spilling its lip
while bushtits bounce on teetery shoots
in the hedge. On my desk, your face graces
a box of cards bearing your (so-called) oracular
lines, words like “ravage” and “Divulging”
and “Heart.” Did you know these days
unconventional capitalization is considered
taboo? Along with your cute little dashes, too?
This world is rule after rule. How they sap
emancipation, the joyous, the utterly beloved.
I can’t imagine you would like it here! Although
there is a wild hive in the knot of the bigleaf
maple out back and I woo mason bees,
swallowtails, Calypte anna hummingbirds
to the habitat reclaimed from my front yard.
Every summer, the dahlias incite a riot
of pollinator ecstasies while the showy
milkweed waits for the prayer of a monarch
migrating through. It can be easy to forget
what has been wrought. You are the one
who remembered it best that last year of
the Civil War: “A power of Butterfly must be –
The Aptitude to fly.” Miss Dickinson,
we have no wings. We are still struggling, still
killing, we are still oh so willfully unseeing.
A familiar poetry, our epistles of dissembling.
I know you would not be surprised.
–
Nancy Flynn grew up on the Susquehanna River in northeastern Pennsylvania, spent many years on a downtown creek in Ithaca, New York, and now lives near the mighty Columbia in Portland, Oregon. Her writing has received an Oregon Literary Fellowship and the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. Recent publications include the poetry collection, Every Door Recklessly Ajar. Her website is www.nancyflynn.com.
© 2025, Nancy Flynn
Halfway Down the Stairs 