Although cryptic in language and structure, Dickinson gives her work an instinctually vivid sense of emotion. Her examination of the feeling of pain focuses in on only a few of the subtler nuances of pain that are integral parts of the experience. She draws in on an "Element of Blank" that she introduces in her opening line. In exploring pain, she proposes that this "blankness" is a self-propagating force that is subject to the dynamic forces of time, history and perception, but only to an extent. Her first mention of "Pain" in the first line does not distinguish this particular emotion as being of a particular brand of pain. She substitutes no other words for "pain." By sug