I found this poem especially interesting because I relate it to when my mind wanders off to thinking about mortality and all that fun existential stuff sometimes. I read this poem with a somewhat ironic tone that honestly makes me laugh. She talks about how we’ll never escape bodily decay, how life is short, and how suffering is long; however, she dismisses all of these ideas at the end of each stanza with the phrase, “but, what of that?” (2.8). I find the third stanza the most interesting. To me, it seems like Dickinson is suggesting that in Heaven, life will be equal- the discrimination, lack of fairness, and cruelty we experience on Earth will no longer exist, and some new sense of balance will take its place. However, she still dismisses this seemingly idyllic afterlife with the same phrase, “but, what of that?” I’m especially curious about why she ends the poem this way. Does it suggest religious doubt about the afterlife, or some indifference of some kind? Is it more of a message to focus on your present life, making the afterlife irrelevant? It could also mean that the pain experienced on Earth is so irreparable that even the idea of Heaven doesn’t matter much. I know Dickinson often writes about death, but this poem stood out to me because of that final line, I’m not fully sure what to make of it.