Emily Dickinson and Katherine Anne Porter

Emily Dickinson’s father yanked on the Baptist bell
To call the townspeople to see the sunset,
And the Baptists saw the glory of the sunset
And went home to stained-glass darkness, awfully disappointed
That something really hideous hadn’t happened,
Like Hell or the atom bomb.
Old man Dickinson who also fed the sparrows over the snow
With grain from his barn (age seventy-one)
And hid until he saw them peck it up.

“And drove the fastest horse in town.”
And when Dylan Thomas was introduced
To Katherine Anne Porter in a room full of people,
He stooped and picked her up below the thighs
And raised her to the ceiling like a drink,
And held her straight in the slack-jawed smoke-blue air
Two minutes, five minutes, seven minutes,
While everybody wondered what it meant
To toast the lady with her own body
Or hold her to the light like a plucked flower.