Doctor of Letters

“All art is artifice,” she says, but

Between bears, Connie

Conjures poems from the distant

Doorways of Dickenson’s Emily

Eyes. Fluidly

Free-writing, she gracefully

Glides down her pen, her

Hands hinting how imagination

Insinuates and invades judgment.

Just as a jealous kiss

Kicks a lover’s

Lips and makes

Meaning move, nights

New, her oracles

Overcome the patterns

Pressed into the quiet

Quilt of reason.

Ready for resistance, yet swooning

Secretly, time tips,

Tripping over and under

Unsettling the very

Veins and arteries with

Words—wild words!—the exact

Xylem and Phloem of our yearning,

Yielding, finally, to the Zenmountain

Zephyrs of her all-loving art.