Fast and flimsy sex and still not
able to sleep, but she has fallen –
under the covers to the other world.
I move down the cold, dark passage
where every move I make echoes twice.

I was reading about Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who prepared the first edition of Emily Dickinson’s poems in 1890. He wrote to his co-editor: “One poem only I dread a little to print – that wonder ‘Wild Nights,’ – lest the malignant read into it more than that virgin recluse ever dreamed of putting there. . . . Yet what a loss to omit it! Indeed it is not to be omitted.”
That comment made me look at the poem again and think about Emily – that virgin recluse – fantasizing in her room one night when she couldn’t sleep.
Emily’s poem:
Wild Nights – Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!Futile – the Winds –
To a Heart in port –
Done with the Compass –
Done with the Chart!Rowing in Eden –
Emily Dickinson
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor –
Tonight – With Thee!