Meeting

they say Emily doesn’t read Walt

Holland tells her he’s disgraceful

does that stop her?

I will go to the bank by the wood & become undisguised & naked.

Emily doesn’t speak in that register

A few light kisses . . . a few embraces . . . a reaching round of arms.

does she suspect 

he is her lone contemporary

& might dilute her?

Always a knit of identity . . . Who need be afraid of the merge?

Walt plays the social game

Emily has no such innocence

enslaved by patriarchy, by gender

she invents her freedom

Between My Country — and the Others —

There is a Sea —

But Flowers — negotiate between us — 

As Ministry.

Pollak claims Walt never heard of Emily

why should we believe that?

You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.

Walt imagines her lusting after his twenty-eight young men

he doesn’t know of Austin, of Susan

Dropped — my fate — a timid Pebble —

In thy bolder Sea —

Prove — me — Sweet — if I regret it —

Prove Myself — of Thee —

no one unmasks Emily’s longings

Afraid! Of whom am I afraid?

Not Death — for who is He? . . .

Of Life? Twere odd I fear a thing

That comprehendeth me

Walt boasts, so much I this & I that

Emily’s humility sings