“I am nobody!  Who are you?”

She floats out of her mid-size Ford like some anorexic Aphrodite.

“By just such a hazard,”

Emily Dickinson has suffered yet another dent

At the Amherst Public Library.

 

And it is my job,

For “I asked no other thing,”

To rehabilitate the beloved poet’s hapless vehicle,

Return it to its measure as a reliable, solid sedan,

Body free of scars, engine finely tuned.

 

I am up to the task.

Next Wednesday after two, Miss Dickinson.

“Unmoved, she (leaves) the chariot’s pausing,”

Expecting complete conservative splendor

After the next moon’s evening ride.

 

The Belle departs upon the whisper of my

silent, sweet adieu,

A (certified mechanic) kneeling upon her mat,”

Who desires nothing more than to transport her words

on the breath of power,

the muscle of sheer speed.

 

“So I must baffle at the hint, and cipher at the sign,”

If I, the poet’s poor mechanic,

Could muster nerve and talent

To pimp out Emily’s ride.

 

“Some things that fly there be”

On the turbo-charged V8.

“Some things that stay there be”

On soft-tread tires, sporting dubs.

“So breathless till I passed her,”

On performance lowering springs.

 

“Angels when the sun is hottest

May be seen the sands among.”

But my seraph garbed in white

Would find such delicate vision

Guarded by the darkest tint.

 

And to leave no detail unmatched, forsaken,

For “inebriate of air am I, and debauchee of dew,”

I would string vanilla-scented heliotrope,

A rearview garland of bee dyspepsia,

To pimp out Emily’s ride.

 

But I only had till two on Wednesday,

Not time enough to love.

So I merely pounded out Emily’s dent

And let the pimp out go.

For this “little tail(pipe) of love, I thought,

(Is) large enough for me.”

 

(My apologies to Emily Dickinson, her fans, Ford, and auto mechanics everywhere)

Copyright 2014