dinner with Emily Dickinson

i went out to the garden

and took my dinner there—

i read a handful of your poems

and stroked wee james’s fur—

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i ate my broccoli omelet—

i drank rose-scented gin—

and then i took me back inside

for riley was the wind.

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but i still thought about you–

and mused upon your work—

the similarities between us both

and other kindred hurts—

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if one must be a poet–

then also gardener be—

for flowers and trees are more disposed

to offer sympathy.