Corpse

by ..

Paul Moorehead

 

Emily Dickinson: goth
before goth. But she had cred: lived
in time of bone
-cracking war, lived
when infant mortality was just
another guest at dinner. Lived
perhaps long enough
to have more-than-flirted
with her civil gentleman,
birthed his untitled children,
buried them in a chest. Now
her spawn’s spawn’s spawn
— evanescent and rowdy
brats — what sorrows
have they known, are about
to know? Heads will come off,
tops first. All of us have had time
to read — Frankenstein, say,
or Rights of Man —
including Emily Dickinson.