I bought a 224 page book of poetry last week, and it's taken me until today to open it. I knew I should've kept walking, that I shouldn't have even picked up the damned thing. However, when have my hands ever listened to my head? Page 1, cracking the spine, "success is counted sweetest..." The first line screams, and I close it once again. What I knew would happen has happened. Your voice through a scratchy telephone speaks quietly but louder than the blaring numbers of 4:15 am. Sylvia Plath pirouettes from your tongue and Poe slips across your lips and then Shakespeare, Frost, Wolfe. We read to each other until you leave me and I leave you and I suppose this is my formal apology to Emily Dickinson for letting his love ruin poetry.
