Emily's Letters Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

Oh, Emily I wonder
If you had written to me
Would I have seen the genius
Hidden in the pleas
For a teacher's eyes
On a novice's lines
Of ragged, unmatching
Rhymes.

Or would I have set them aside
In my stack of correspondence
From similar women
Unfeminine in their pretensions for fame.

Would I now, not knowing your name,
Make it through the maze
Of dropped pawns
And paste pearls
Crushed like innocence
And left like crumbs to your door.

Would I
Take the time to read
And reread
And reread
To mine for meaning
Deep beneath the surface
Of your deceptively self-deprecating words?

And if I had taken up the dare
And kept up a correspondence
Letter for letter
Insight for insight
How long could I have sustained the assault
Of your poetry on my sanity?

Would you have sucked me in
Like Charybdis?
Or could I have borne you to shore?
Kept us afloat through your storms?

And if I had, would the Atlantis
That you left behind -
Lost and found
Altered then restored
More myth than history -
Have become the lesser for my efforts?