Winsome, Attic-bound Lady Poets

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Winsome, Attic-bound, Lady Poets

     By Dougy Doggie Dickenson

    emily dickenson

    gobbled the thickest one

    she could imagine each day

    when she was good and full

    crammed with the cream and all

    once more she’d so much to say

Oh my darling Robert Mann / I just wish that I could stand the noise and lights / and rocking band that plays so loud / the pussies stand and cry and call / and whine for peace / I hate to bother / you about this insignificance / but I know you will take my part / and let the owner of this mart / know that a woman down below / below in number eight three o / is feeling noxious every night / because the musics loudly bite

       Such nonsense and more Emily thought to herself about her most recent imaginary lover. Her father had once expressly forbidden a handsome farmer who had called, asking for her hand. Well, not asking for her hand, exactly, but next to it. He had inquired with modesty in his demeanor if he might confer with Emily, and speak to her in private because he owned a large farm with sheep, horses, cider press, barns, and various outbuildings, as well as a spacious house with a well-appointed attic in which she might spend, to her heart’s content, her time unmolested, composing verses.      

       He wished, he told her father, to strike up an acquaintance with this woman whom he had never seen, whose beauty was legendary, who excelled at the arts, and in particular at poetry, and also (he blushed as he spoke the words) whose laundry he had spied once or twice from his pasture close by as he rode his horse and counted livestock. The various items of lingerie on the lines especially had intrigued him and beckoned his heart to enquire after her availability for brief social intercourse.

       Her father had roundly berated this handsome man and asked him never in future to make reference to women’s dainties drying on racks in or out of the house, laid out in drawers, or draped about a person underneath their dresses and blouses where none was intended to see or have reason to refer to them. And if this thick man—father referred to him so to his face—if this thick man wished to be set perfectly straight on the matter, the beautiful one was his wife, Analda! Furthermore, Emily’s laundry never yet had hung outside on the line over the lawn for all and anyone to ogle over!

But, if he, the farmer, so wished, he might have a quick observation of various articles of Emily's underthings and, not unlikely, might find them a little less to his taste than his wife’s. He took the thick man upstairs to my bedroom. Without knocking, he entered, followed by this strapping young buck, who glanced at me and stopped dead in his tracks. Father opened the specified drawer and took out item after item, holding each up. The neighbor did take them in, I noticed. He was dumbstruck. He could not believe his eyes. I saw all this, I must repeat. Father said then, “Are you satisfied!” The man simply nodded and the two of them walked back downstairs. Now I pen a lament for the loss of such a fine specimen.

That was today’s memory, today's conquest of passion. What will tomorrow bring? I hardly dare say. But write I must of my own unworthiness and the beauty of the men who come to call. I remember, for instance, Basil Bayleaf. With his tanned exterior and white interior, he struck me at first as a dismal prospect. I experienced no desire fanned by his outwards. What I did like about him, though, was the way his mouth in its pinkness tongued mine when he finally got me to meet him in the woods. He talked little. We loved. I took notice of his tongue. I looked closely at the bright inside of his mouth. He showed me when I asked. “Open wide,” I said, and after a minute of introspection, he did that. Once gone, he did not return to visit again.

Now, Nelly, my horse, is another matter. Like Sir Topas, I ride him on errands. After dark, mainly. We canter along and then stop and roll in the meadow if the air is warm enough and there is moonlight. We relish in this diversion for no reason so much as the togetherness it expresses. I spoke of how we feel about each other. She likes me and I like her. With her legs dandying the air, and mine, too, and our hair flying in the night wind, we take our time and play to our hearts’ content. And then we sleep. Lying there for two hours or more, we become one with the earth, our limbs tightly entwined. Nelly has my heart now. No man will ever love me as she does. I adore her whinny. I can recognize it among those of the other mounts in the barnyard. When she neighs I come. I dash out and throw myself on her back and we ride away.

My doggie, too, is a beloved of mine. If not actually my favorite farm animal, then one I list high on the scale of friendship. His tongue lolls when he has run for a space. His eyes sweat and seem tired but happy if he exerts himself. I, on the other hand, am myself seldom active any more than is necessary for the practical tasks at hand. I write, that is true, but writing requires no swift movements of arms and legs. I sing now and then, but the forming of musical notes with the throat and mouth taxes neither the ligaments nor major muscles. I sing without perspiring and so, even when I am active I seldom lose myself to exhaustion. Doggie is frequently spent.

Now, the other afternoon, he came to me at night. He whined beneath my window and when I heard him I opened it and let down a ladder, which he has learned to climb, and up he came and spoke to me in a language we both understand. He spoke of recent nocturnal adventures. Then he lay down with his head in my lap. I pampered him. He slept, finally. He spent the night in a restless state. I do not let him up here often. If father found us he would thrash me and kick doggie.

       Father spanks me roundly when he disagrees with my habits. He takes me over his knee, lifts my dress, and punishes me. He paddles me initially without strength of purpose, but then with more vigor, until he believes that I have learned my lesson.

Doggie doggie on the wall

Who’s the fairest of them all

Is it me or is it her

Tell me please you little cur

Doggie doggie on the ground

Is my body soft or sound

Do you running think of me

Speeding over humps and skree

Doggie doggie panting hard

You’ve become my little pard

I would give my life for you

My love my dear is all too true

Doggie doggie darling pet

You are not my favorite yet

Once you are I’ll let you know

But till then you’re free to go

So she wrote. Emily fixed her gaze on a sheep in the pen outside the barn near the chicken coop and composed further. “Oh, Henry, darling wooly boy / You take me to heights of joy / I your lovely sweetheart am / You my special little lamb / When the church on Thursday meets / and my family leaves the house / you and I can freely play / spent in pleasures all the day / You will sweep the chimney first / I will be your special nurse / We will watch the evening’s sheen / then the dark’ning of the green / Children coming home to sleep / will not rush to greet their dams / For their hearts at suppertime / beat as fiercely as does mine / In my bed and you in yours / each to other fond will bleat / you of troubles I can’t see / I of things I’d rather be

       Emily fixed her mind on her poem and wrote it quickly. Then, tired, she hauled herself up off her bed and went to the window to survey the grounds below. Who would she engage for this evening, she thought as she looked about her at the moon-strewn fields.