Gravestone of Emily Dickinson, in West Cemetery, Amherst, Mass.
That it will never come again
Is what makes life so sweet.
Believing what we don’t believe
Does not exhilarate.
That if it be, it be at best
An ablative estate —
This instigates an appetite
Precisely opposite.
— Emily Dickinson
”An ablative estate’’ refers to ablation, an operation involving removing body tissue — something that heals but that also involves losing part of the patient.
