Dash (February)

Some names and words are synonymous. Shakespeare has his Will, Auden has Time. Dickinson has a punctuation mark. Many many well-punctuated paragraphs provide analysis of Miss Emily’s blessed dash. She’d make February sound like Paradise, or Inferno, then dash. Anthologies that convert her lines with commas and periods are scorned, because her dashes leave the meaning open. They are pause for effect, thought, supplication. Fill in the gap! What happens next? Her will forced into small space when she’d all the time in the world. It’s like she never closed a thought, always there’s something else, something time will add.