I Love You As Much

I love you as much 

as Emily Dickinson, May Swenson.

You frequently bring me to tears.

What a delight you are to know!

I only wish you weren’t dead.

May I say May, you ring my bell.

Are yourself a Bell, a Belle and a Bell.

Would I had been your clapper.

Indeed, if you were alive today,

I’d offer my dong—

you could have my children—

(as you, yourself, half-offered yourself 

to someone admired, despite being gay).

I am not gay. But May, Oh! May!

You’re an affirmation of our profession,

an art-form rarely successful.

And yet you were! You so often were!