“Dessert Is Counted Sweetest’’ (after Emily Dickinson poem. See below.)

(Appeared in the May/June 2022 Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin)

Dessert is counted sweetest
By those who need to diet.
When doctors won't stop nagging,
I fantasize a riot.

Not one of all the cakes and pies
I might forgo today
Could fail to bring me pleasure --
Though later, much dismay.

— Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a Providence-based poet and Brown University philosophy professor.

The Dickinson poem:

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of victory

As he defeated – dying –

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Burst agonized and clear!