Pittsburgh Poets Playshop

EMILY DICKINSON

You of sparse interactions

consulting your internal dictionary of sights and sounds

surprise us with what you see.

You wake us to the light,

the sun, the sky,

the birds, the days

you held inside.

You write - and we see, too.

MARIE ANTOINETTE

You lived your life

in wigs and fancies of excellence of your age,

eating the cakes that you became infamous for,

enjoying the position your husbands state conferred.

You came to your end

without awareness of Marxian economics

and without a Bible in your hand.