Renee Emerson

Merciless
 
Audubon killed and pinned 
each bird to a board, stiff 

wings formed by his fingers
as if in flight, alive again.

Easier to get the details
right. No escaping now.

I frame and pin in place 
my daughter’s last best dress—

pink and blue lace, doll-sized, 
a Snow White resurrected

from her glass casket. A dress 
never wrinkled or outgrown, 

or stained. I look at it on the wall
and remember my little girl 

who could have, given the chance,
set those starched skirts flying. 

Renee Emerson is a poet, online writing instructor, and homeschooling mom of five. She is the author of three poetry collections; her first collection, Keeping Me Still (Winter Goose Publishing 2014), was a finalist in the Jacar Press Julie Suk Award for Best Poetry Book Published by an Independent Press in 2014. Her second collection, Threshing Floor, was published by Jacar Press in 2016, and Church Ladies was published by Fernwood Press in 2023. Her substack is reneeemerson.substack.com.