The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Tue 4/18/06)

[RetroLounge]

Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.

And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.

Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer's dividing water,
and slip inside.

You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.

The complexity of women's undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything -
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.

What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.

So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset

and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.

Billy Collins

********************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[wildhorses]

1. and on a Sunday, too....

I especially LOVE these lines...


sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.

it was like riding a swan into the night,

that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.



thanks for being you RL:yourock:

[miss_american_pie]

2. Oh very clever

"nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane."

:hi:

[RetroLounge]

5. ...

:hi:

RL

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. My dear RetroLounge........

It is so easy to forget, I believe, how very erotic the understatement can truly be.....

And this poem is just that!

It is also very gentle.......as I imagined their love-making was.....

Thank you...



:loveya: :hug:

[xchrom]

4. wide eyed and relieved.