0028 Emily Dickinson Considers Her Breasts Poem by Michael Shepherd

White silk gown – Sunday silk – yet
daily donned – tight-cuffed –
cool hands – folded - warm lap -
milk-white - under orange vest – and -
bearing – or to bear? –
two Legacies - from You, Sire –
this simple pair accompanying me -
twin-mirrored –
two poems yet to be read –
two words yet to be said –
to stimulate – a man -
circumferencing – unwritten future – to know – perhaps - which? -

kiss of need? as kid of goat –
little lips - innocent of teeth - tugged
as pulled red berry? Cherries fit
such little mouths. Or -

kiss of love? milk-white skin
brushed first – moustache – then
body’s delirious shudder –
ecstatic contract!
two red berries – red-plucked –
this first?
Will there be a morning - mooring –
you as sunrise -
after wild and feathered night,
bondage as play - so sweet?

Or – are these berries – to grow parched?
A rose - cease to bloom - before the flower taken -
autumn berries - heavy-hanging –
dropping – unmilked – unmouthed -
love put away - put in a drawer,
hiding brave face in hand?
I thus eventual – be –
awaiting further chance
of eternity?

You cannot put a fire out –
you love me – you are sure -
but – which is it, sir?