(for Billy Collins, author of the poem,
“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes,”
on the 138th anniversary of her death,
May 15, 1886 )

You will want to know
that she said yes every time,
that she undressed him, too—
no shy maid, that one—
that, no matter how much he
wished it wasn’t so,
she undid him in ways
his poet’s pen could not record,
and she gave her hope and passion
not only to the page—
as has long been thought.

Should you go to Amherst,
take the tour of her yellow house,
wide-eyed with its green shutters.
Listen to a doe-eyed docent
relate anecdotes of the petite
recluse who penned poems
on scraps of paper and stuck them
in the voluminous pockets
of her demure white dress.

Stand in her bedroom aerie
where, after she died, her sister
did as the poet asked—burned the letters—
but for some reason spared the poems.

Take in the tiny bed and imagine
him there with her—
their twin souls all sighs and dashes—
singing the tunes without the words—
never stopping at all.

•••

“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes,” Billy Collins
Poetry magazine, February 1998