I THINK EMILY DICKINSON
WOULD HAVE BEEN POLITICAL TODAY
by Sharon Olds
Page 3
We were talking before about the boys who say Emily. They aren't thinking of that poet who wrote that. The snake poem--
A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Occasionally rides -
You may have met Him - did you not
His notice sudden is -
The Grass divides as with a Comb -
A spotted shaft is seen -
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on -
He likes a Boggy acre
A Floor too cool for Corn -
Yet when a Boy, and Barefoot -
I more than once at Noon
Have passed, I thought, a Whip lash
Unbraiding in the Sun
When stooping to secure it
It wrinkled, and was gone -
Several of Nature's People
I know, and they know me -
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality -
But never met this Fellow
Attended, or alone
Without a tighter breathing
And Zero at the Bone -
(JP 986)
