When I read Dickinson

The monkey hangs down the creepy long greens

Amidst the sun kissed leaves

Through the spotted rains

Through the blues of the sky

While Emily Dickinson warms my bed

And the speckled dust hugs my window panes

I question life and death and possibility and probability

I think about her life of seclusion; her life of reservation; of death and of disease

Of words and letters;

I hug my knees

And smugly smile

At the similarity and duality of lives across centuries

I could read a poem and relate to the poet

I could live her life through her work

And see her dreams through her eyes

I could live the melancholy of her life

And the rapturous joy in her life

I could live multiple lives

In a lone solitary life

I could live a million lives

In a lone solitary life!