Déjà Vu

One is Emily when sitting in profile

and she’s someone else, a different animal, when looking straight ahead.

One Emily dreams about a man in an inferno.

Another, waking up, writes

that he is a man assaulted by butterflies.

One of them is left with no words facing the brightness.

The other knows what’s there inside the cage, under its cover.

The first one hunts a blue raptor.

The second sends it to perch on the bust of Edgar Allan Poe.

Emily considers going downstairs to greet her friends.

Another Emily—one who glimpses the future by mistake—

locks her door from the inside.