Electronic pages, turning
at my finger glide, reproduce
Emily's own herbarium
where she immured with precision
water lilies, cowslips, roses
under her  handwritten paper cuffs
with a loving botanist's brain.
 
How did she dry and press so flat
the heavy peony, the filmy vetch?
How did she put her dears away?
Her own dress, so pressed, flat and white,
held her apart from passersby.
Her austere room no hint of life,
the color of her soul ivory.
 
While in her tiny hand-sewn books
the living flower of her being
skipped and danced with crimson petal,
juggling brains and anguish as toys.
She gardened at night with owls,
her immured self in deep pages,
her tissues split, splayed, dried for art.