I LIKE a look of agony
Because I know it ‘s true;
Men do not sham convulsion,
Nor simulate a throe.
The eyes gaze once, and that is death.
Impossible to feign
The beads upon the forehead
By homely anguish strung.
Real
Summary
"Real" is a short poem by Emily Dickinson that looks hard at the face of suffering and asks what cannot be faked. The speaker admires a look of agony precisely because it is true, since no one can counterfeit convulsion or mimic a throe. In just two stanzas, a single gaze and beads of sweat on a forehead become proof of genuine pain, and the poem leaves the reader with a chilling, quiet certainty.
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