April 27, 2019
Roy Bentley
There's this ledge you look over. A railing you lean out from
and stare down at the world of souls like the feeder at Sea World.
And I didn't know a hillbilly from dark matter, a skewered star,
looking down beside a hallelujah gallery of bureaucrat angels.
My soon-to-be parents would move from Kentucky to Ohio,
so I wouldn't go hungry as a kid. And I wouldn't have to be
referred to, unfavorably, in comparisons to a coal bucket. 
So what if I didn't know my ass from a glass of buttermilk. 
So what if I'd lug a Southern accent around like a school bag. 
 
A box of rocks might have had more walking-around sense,
but I was sure that I'd be happy—the way he looked at her
and the way she looked back at him like we'd be all right.
A family. And if it didn't happen this way, it could have. 
Who can say that it didn't? I mean, there's all this talk
of a heaven they've gone to now, having left the body.
I'm just saying it works both ways. Or that it should. 
I'm saying any given heaven goes by several names. 
And one of those is a synonym for Fleming-Neon. 
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INAUGURAL ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS LAUREATE FELLOWSHIPS ANNOUNCED
 
Academy of American Poets awards over $1 million dollars to 13 poet laureates in "recognition of their literary merit and to support civic programs, which will take place over the next twelve months."

via PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
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I took an introductory poetry writing class in my sophomore year of college because my schedule allowed it; I had mostly downed novels up until then. We were not assigned this Dickinson poem in class, and I can’t remember exactly how I came upon it. I was familiar with many of her famous poems, but something about this one made me feel both wonderfully repaired (from what? why?) and restive.
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