Before the Formal Feeling Comes
        after Emily Dickinson

This is before the formal feeling comes:
just after his death. Her heart has Tourette's,
and she's inside her head speaking in tongues.

It feels something like — joy. She sees him
stealing home for the Angels, fetching thrown bats
— this is before the formal feeling comes—

he has both his legs, is whole, saves the game
(why he showed his teeth when he died),
and she's inside her head speaking in tongues

that call down the stairs to where some
poor woman — not her — lies chained to the floor
— it is before the formal feeling comes —

lies chained where she cries for her empty womb.
Keening like sirens, like breaking glass,
she hears in her head, spoken in tongues,

God's ways are mysterious to men, but
to mothers, most cruel. She's climbed the roof
— it is before the formal feeling comes —

to shake her fist at the sky. Someone hums
a hymn in the graveyard, where she's gone
inside her head, speaking in tongues,

to scratch his name on a tomb. She is — undone.
Unlocked. Unlatched. Unhinged, a door kicked in.
It is before the formal feeling comes.
She is inside her head speaking in tongues.

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Copyright © 2021 Rebecca Foust All rights reserved
from Nostos
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission