Forgive me.
I should have kept
you buried, Anna.
163 years of silence—
unearthed—
an Egyptian ossuary
exhaling red rot breath,
cursing cursive—
hieroglyphics
to girls your age now.
your warnings drag across
a brittle leaf. how
Botticelli fresh
it was and is to us now,
a resurrection.
August 15, asterisked
each year—she thought
we wouldn’t know
the meaning
of celestial codes.
Erie Canal shipped
all sorts in packets—
boardinghouses filled
with single men, guys, bachelors
of alarming backgrounds,
sweaty necks stiff with wide silk ties,
eyeing daughters of established
families, ingratiating themselves
into Utica society.
mother referred to him as
that little dentist!
she made sure
Anna never saw
William Platt again.
Four years from now,
the next presidential election,
I wonder where I shall be!
In a house divided
riding a skeletal horse
without a saddle—
a secession race
toward the border.
It won’t be taken
seriously at first,
Anna, not until the
Bull Runs over blankets,
smashing picnic baskets
of sweet cakes to the soil.
Diary entries were taken from the diaries of Anna Shankland Kellogg, Troy Female Seminary student, 1856–1858, at the Emma Willard School Archives.
