10,260. EMILY DICKINSON

EMILY DICKINSON

(only kidding)
Not stopping for Death and so Death

kindly stopped for me  -  do you know

that one? I wrote a paper on it once,

for Mr. Steber, at Elmira College. He

gave me an 'A' but said he hadn't a clue

really what I was talking about, though

he wished he did and wanted to come

along. I said it was all conjecture I was

just shooting from the hip. But what a

shot you are, he said. Or may be. Why

added that at the end always bothered

me. I wanted to follow him home, secretly,

maybe see where he lived and bash in his

brains. I wondered if he had a TV and a

family, and all that stuff. This old poem

was meant to be about a lot more than him,

and more then he'd ever be. But I hadn't the

words quite to say it : he said he had to go,

would see me again on Tuesday, I said not

if I see you first. Yeah, sure, that seals any

deal. He's probably dead by now, that was

forty plus years ago, poor guy. I never did

catch back up to him to return his pen  - 

I'd stolen it while he talked, a nice silver

one, an Everwriter or something. Pure

hyperbole and I wondered if he knew that.

Nothing writes forever, certainly not

a twelve dollar pen.