Summer Holiday
11 June 1852
Emily Dickinson to Susan Huntington
“I have but one thought, Susie, this afternoon of June, and that of you, and I have one prayer, only; dear Susie, that is for you. That you and I in hand as we e'en do in heart, might ramble away as children, among the woods and fields, and forget these many years, and these sorrowing cares, and each become a child again — I would it were so, Susie, and when I look around me and find myself alone, I sigh for you again; little sigh, and vain sigh, which will not bring you home.”
Beneath the ornate arch of Canada's
oldest Chinatown, we're playing house
again. Walking out with noodles you slam
your own hand in a security grate like oh
god we've been left unsupervised. I carry
it all home to kiss it better and now we're
giddy on a bus with fizzy drinks, taking naps
at noon, telling ghost stories on the beach.
I want to spin you around til we're dizzy, roll
down hills and bruise my knees and weave
you necklaces from daisies. What wouldn't I
pull up by the roots to get a grin from you,
your sunburst freckles in the light like sherbet,
reading me to sleep. If we met as children you
would hate me, and so used to adoration I
would talk about you all the time. I get braver
when I'm with you, like I could hold a spider
right in my palm, breathing secrets across
your pillow in the dark. We wail at home-time,
like there's a teddy forgotten in a shopping
centre or why you should never give a toddler
a balloon. I wished I could have floated away
with it then, I’d let it lead me to the moon.
Aoife Riach is a queer feminist witch with an MA in Gender & Women’s studies and a post grad certificate in Sexuality & Sexual Health Education. She has worked as a writer for BUST magazine in NYC and her poetry has been published by College Green Journal, Nothing Substantial, Sonder, Impossible Archetype and other magazines. She was a finalist in the 2019 Inter-varsity Poetry Slam and was a 2019 Irish Writers Centre Young Writer Delegate. Her poem “Vancouver” was chosen for Hungering, the latest curation of the Poetry Jukebox currently installed at EPIC, The Irish Emigration Museum in Dublin.