My Emily Dickinson

by Rebecca Sturgeon

Particularly annoying were the number of calls

expected of women in the Homestead.
The constant placement of self in society,
all hours and all welcomed --

scissors cutting away strands of the precious time

until the pale scalp showed.
Is it any wonder she sheltered in place
with illness and selective domesticity?

Bake bread, tend the garden --
neither dust nor visit.
Away from the frequency of polite conversation,

allow the mind to wander, pause, consider, resettle.

Rise like bread on the breaths of unseen organisms.

Spread like the garden over unattended earth.

Rebecca Sturgeon (she/her) lives, moves, and writes in Louisville, Kentucky, usually with a cat draped over one or both of her wrists. She is on a lifelong mission to dismantle diet culture and make space for the pleasure and freedom of every body. On her Substack, Our Daily Breath (rebeccasturgeon.substack.com), she publishes inside glimpses of the creative process and bits of poems-in-progress.