Put aside the twaddle about her
Forced upon us in ten thousand
Books and other tedious varieties.
Nights in green eyeshadow she
Panther-like prowled Amherst's
Back alleys her brain abuzz with
Webster's definition of VOLCANO
As a hole or slit in the surface of
A mountain from which ejects
Smoke, flames, and the hot lava;
Of the legendary demonic VAMPIRE
Fabled to suck our blood at night;
And of HELL: the place to which are
Carried all those that are CAUGHT.
2.
Preoccupied by photography ever since
That absurd daguerreotype image of her
Appeared in 1847 she presents herself
Several times a week at the sidewalk
Booth of Amherst's tintype photographer
Always in one or another of her favorite
Disguises though she has no illusions
Mr. Deutsch is fooled. Fishwife, harlot,
Little Bo-Peep, Jane Eyre, Cleopatra,
And Joan of Arc are some of her many
Incarnations until she convinces Deutsch
To teach her the process and transforms
Her room into a secret studio for creating
Hundreds of what we now call 'selfies.'
3.
As a word-lover she loved gamahuche,
Gamahuching, will be (was) gamahuched,
Or in a sentence: The bee gamahuched
The flowers. She marveled at the bees
Entering daffodils enveloped by sunlight
Refracted through tender golden petals:
Surely Solomon in all his glory never
Gamahuched like these and once at
Great risk she allowed herself mentally
To gamahuche Susan as when the bee
Enters the flower or wantonly imagined
Herself gamahuched by that stern Athena
Who lived just across the garden and who
Doubtless was gamahuched by Austin.
*ED resided across the back yard from
her brother Austin and his wife Susan.
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