Emily Dickinson taking the train.

Not the Erie-Lackawanna Route of Phoebe Snow, although this morning she is dressed For it, in Phoebe's white, wearing white For the way she sees herself in her own journey, Preserving the innocence of Eve against All blandishments of Edens and Adams, Preserving the innocence of words, giving Virgin birth to them, nursing them each Sparingly, sparingly. Relentlessly, the rails Beneath her rhyme, in couplings like her own Quatrains, but sing-songing their iron caesuras, Unbroken by assonance. As relentlessly as the pea Beneath twelve mattresses that troubled the dreams Of the sleeping princess, the ballasted roadbed Stones her poems; the sharpened scissors of rails Shear away beneath her the sanctuary of home, Pair distance and desire dangerously, divide Her phrases with dashes, disjoint her lines. Journey's end: The pointed blades of the rails That scissored day, now pierce the night, Have pierced one passenger, descending At Amherst in soot-dappled white.