Beware The Complete Poems
of Emily Dickinson.
Solitary words,
machined with such precision,
are liable, when incanted,
to crack the roof open
and fill up your classroom
with sharp sky-
colored diadems.
Incantations like hers
are much safer
read in private,
for when- and wherever
such a stealth bomb
is detonated,
every molecule
in the ears of the hearers
might quiver,
the hard drives
in their cell phones may
spontaneously erase,
and of course,
there's the ominous possibility
of power failures:
the overhead projector
darkens; the lights dim
and flicker;
the custodian in the basement
primes the generators,
just in case.
