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Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes
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User Rating: |
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8.4
/10
(34
votes)
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First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.
And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.
Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer's dividing water,
and slip inside.
You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.
The complexity of women's undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.
Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything -
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.
What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.
So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset
and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that reason is a plank,
that life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.
Billy Collins
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Read poems about / on: america, women, house, hair, mother, water, hope, light, night, woman
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Comments about this poem (Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes
by
Billy Collins
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Billy Collins
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Debi Von Trapp
(8/6/2009 5:06:00 AM) |
Billy Collins' work is inspiring to say the least and this is by far my favourite of his poems.
I adore how he writes and conveys his thoughts, so wonderfully lighthearted and almost innocent.
Undressing Emily Dickinson is obviously as hard as understanding her can be. I love the reference to her own works:
'how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke. '
I shall never tire of reading this exquisite piece of poetry!
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Ben Casteel
(2/2/2008 11:45:00 AM) |
Who knew fantasizing about sex with Emily Dickinson could be so.... interesting. Billy you are a gem.
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Snakedick Jackson
(7/30/2006 6:47:00 PM) |
'at a boy, Billy! ! !
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!
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