The Home

This poem presumably takes place in the speaker's home. Scholars have called "Sacred Emily" a poem of oikonomia, Greek for household management. Household objects appear abundantly, including curtains, aprons, cushions, carpets, and table linen. Domestic tasks such as cleaning, sewing, mending, preparing food, and cooking are also mentioned.

The Interior of the Speaker's Mind

The poem's stream of consciousness style evokes the chaotic soundscape of a full house along with the contrasting thoughts and experience of the speaker, who manages the household. The progression of lines such as "Cordially yours. / In strewing, in strewing. / That is the way we are one and indivisible. / Pay nuts renounce" bounces from one thing to another (68-71). For example, these lines suggest a polite interaction with someone outside the family, the repeated scattering of things in an untidy manner, a proclamation of unity, and an example of random association and word...