Poem 84, emily dickinson, 1859

Alyssa Witvoet | Spring 2022

Her breast is fit for pearls, 
But I was not a “Diver” — 

How could I be? A diver—to swim so deep I could no longer see the Sun, to immerse myself so entirely in the abyss and trust—the air would return to my lungs. Endlessly sentenced to scour muck for priceless pleasure, no say in the matter. And yet, how different would it be, really? Am I not awaiting breath’s return to your chest as I ponder? Am I not rummaging through heaps of dull details, intent on uncovering the ecstasy in your face? Why, I am certainly a diver. If only I could remove your cumbersome dress, I would teach you to swim, to float. Together, we could learn to cautiously watch the pining waves, and to abandon caution. We are not so far from the water—nor from each other—and when we return to our neighboring houses we will smell of the sea. 

Her brow is fit for thrones

Oh, how it beckons for reverence—begs to be idolized. Your adoration—a ray of sunlight on my skin—changes everything to gold. 

But I have not a crest. 

And this one, I cannot pretend to change. When you turn me to gold, I am frozen, work-hardened in the effort to pull words from my lips and gestures from my limbs. You are liquid, flowing, heated until everything melts. I have not a crest, I was not made for this nobility, this fragility. 

Her heart is fit for home — 

Yet my fluttering chest calms as you draw near, and the golden sheen fades with the Sun. The sea in your hair and the breath in my lungs amalgamate until I am pacified. You have pacified me. Your brow is fit for thrones—yet you, my compass, wish not for them—you only desire to hold my beating heart in your palm, to plant it deeply in the garden between our windows, so that sometimes, you may visit. Quietly, you plant yours in the same plot.    

I - a Sparrow - build there
Sweet of twigs and twine

And figs, and wine, and all I offer, you fold into the bread you bake. Learning to float, learning to fly, learning to breathe, living in the grass, you alongside me, enraptured and undressed. We do not utter truths that could be heard, and yet, two poets—our hands give us away when introduced to pens. I gave myself away when introduced to you— my Star, my Bee, my Susan— 

My perennial nest.