emily

Emily had a relationship on this level with someone she calls Thou. She describes Thou as awake like herself all night   

and full of strange power.

Thou woos Emily with a voice that comes out of the night wind.   

Thou and Emily influence one another in the darkness,   

playing near and far at once.

She talks about a sweetness that “proved us one.”

I am uneasy with the compensatory model of female religious experience and yet,

there is no question,

it would be sweet to have a friend to tell things to at night,   

without the terrible sex price to pay.   

This is a childish idea, I know.

The Glass Essay

It is stunning, it is a moment like no other,

when one’s lover comes in and says I do not love you anymore.   

I switch off the lamp and lie on my back,

thinking about Emily’s cold young soul.   

Where does unbelief begin?   

When I was young

there were degrees of certainty.

I could say, Yes I know that I have two hands.

Then one day I awakened on a planet of people whose hands occasionally      

    disappear—

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178364