Sunday, October 07, 2007

100 words on an Emily Dickinson poem


188


Susan knows
she is a Siren --
and that at a
word from her,
Emily would
forfeit Righteousness --
Please excuse
the grossness
of this Morning --
I was for a
moment
disarmed --
This is the
World that opens
and shuts, like
the Eye of the
Wax Doll --

From Open Me Carefully edited by Ellen Louise Hart and Martha Nell Smith

Emily writes an apology to Susan who is a Siren. In her great beauty, Susan makes Emily abandon her rightness from the spat - the grossness - from this morning In her oblique apology “I was for a/moment/disarmed--”, Emily equates the argument to the world which opens and shut “like/the Eye of the/Wax Doll.” Does the world see the rightness that was Emily’s? Does the world see that if Susan would give Emily one word - a word of affection, of love - that Emily would abandon her anger? Are we the wax doll?

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