Love Note

by Eugenie Theall

I stand in long, green dashes—
tombstone shadows—like in a Dickinson poem.

Cool air falls in tendrils, cups my face,
murmurs: Poor old girl, still a spinster.
Do you have a white dress?

But I admire Dickinson—for the long,
deep breath she took—all the pacing,
how the friction must have burned—

each night she let down her hair,
her hand outstretched with only moonlight
in the folds of sheets;

her mornings, preoccupied with her inspection
of striped fur, and stinger. Her thoughts
bound together in a drawer, earmarked by dust.

I, too, am a graveyard filled with buried loves.

Eugenie Juliet Theall completed her MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College, founded a children’s library in Nairobi, Kenya, and currently teaches creative writing and English to middle school children. Her poetry has been published or is forthcoming in Carquinez Poetry Review, The Chaffin Journal, CQ, Curbside Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Eclipse, Flash!Point, Forge, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Hiram Poetry Review, Illuminations, Lullwater Review, Mudfish, Oregon East Magazine, Passage, Quercus Review, Red Rock Review, Sanskrit, Schuylkill Valley Journal, Silk Road, and Slipstream. Miss Theall’s work also won first place in the Elizabeth McCormack/Inkwell contest.