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You Cutting The Lawn, Fixing The Machines, All This Leprous Day And Then More Vodka, More Soda And The Pond Forgiving Our Bodies, The Pond Sucking Out The Throb.

-Anne Sexton

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You Cutting The Lawn,

Anne Sexton

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You Cutting The Lawn, Fixing The Machines, All This Leprous Day And Then More Vodka, More Soda And The Pond Forgiving Our Bodies, The Pond Sucking Out The Throb.

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Take A Woman Talking, Purging Herself With Rhymes, Drumming Words Out Like A Typewriter, Planting Words In You Like Grass Seed. You'll Move Off.

Our Eyes Are Full Of Terrible Confessions.

I Am Younger Each Year At The First Snow. When I See It, Suddenly, In The Air, All Little And White And Moving; Then I Am In Love Again And Very Young And I Believe Everything.

Suicide Is, After All, The Opposite Of The Poem.

Blue Eyes Wash Off Sometimes.

Daylight Is Nobody's Friend. God Comes In Like A Landlord And Flashes On His Brassy Lamp.

Some Women Marry Houses. It's Another Kind Of Skin; It Has A Heart, A Mouth, A Liver And Bowel Movements.

The Witch's Life" When I Was A Child There Was An Old Woman In Our Neighborhood Whom We Called The Witch. All Day She Peered From Her Second Story Window From Behind The Wrinkled Curtains And Sometimes She Would Open The Window And Yell: Get Out Of My Life! She Had Hair Like Kelp And A Voice Like A Boulder. I Think Of Her Sometimes Now And Wonder If I Am Becoming Her.

Being Sixteen In The Pants I Died Full Of Questions

The Town Is Silent. The Night Boils With Eleven Stars. Oh Starry Starry Night! This Is How I Want To Die.

Give Me Your Skin As Sheer As A Cobweb, Let Me Open It Up And Listen In And Scoop Out The Dark.

I Hoard Books. They Are People Who Do Not Leave.

The Fish Are Naked. The Fish Are Always Awake. They Are The Color Of Old Spoons And Caramels.

Images Are The Heart Of Poetry ... You're Not A Poet Without Imagery.

Nature Is Full Of Teeth That Come In One By One, Then Decay, Fall Out.

The Windows, The Starving Windows That Drive The Trees Like Nails Into My Heart.

And The Aura Of You Remains, Remains, Remains...

Once I Was Beautiful. Now I Am Myself, Counting This Row And That Row Of Moccasins Waiting On The Silent Shelf.

There Is Hope. There Is Hope Everywhere. Today God Give Milk And I Have The Pail.

The Snow Has Quietness In It; No Songs, No Smells, No Shouts Or Traffic. When I Speak My Own Voice Shocks Me.

I Would Like To Bury All The Hating Eyes Under The Sand Somewhere.

Of Course The New Testament Is Very Small. Its Mouth Opens Four Times As Out-of-date As A Prehistoric Monster, Yet Somehow Man-made.

So I Won't Hang Around In My Hospital Shift, Repeating The Black Mass And All Of It. I Say Live, Live Because Of The Sun, The Dream, The Excitable Gift.

All I Wanted Was A Little Piece Of Life, To Be Married, To Have Children.... I Was Trying My Damnedest To Lead A Conventional Life, For That Was How I Was Brought Up, And It Was What My Husband Wanted Of Me. But One Can't Build Little White Picket Fences To Keep The Nightmares Out.

The Ground Has On Its Clothes. The Trees Poke Out Of Sheets And Each Branch Wears The Sock Of God.

When The Cow Gives Blood And The Christ Is Born We Must All Eat Sacrifices. We Must All Eat Beautiful Women.

Images Are Probably The Most Important Part Of The Poem. First Of All You Want To Tell A Story, But Images Are What Are Going To Shore It Up And Get To The Heart Of The Matter.

Now I Am Going Back And I Have Ripped My Hand From Your Hand As I Said I Would And I Have Made It This Far.

Somebody Who Should Have Been Born Is Gone. Yes, Woman, Such Logic Will Lead To Loss Without Death. Or Say What You Meant, You Coward . . . This Baby That I Bleed.

Then All This Became History. Your Hand Found Mine. Life Rushed To My Fingers Like A Blood Clot. Oh, My Carpenter, The Fingers Are Rebuilt. They Dance With Yours.

I Am So Imperfect, Can You Love Me When Really My Soul Is Deformed? Will You Love Me Anyhow?

Our Checks Are Pale. Our Wallets Are Invalids. Past Due, Past Due, Is What Our Bills Are Saying And Yet We Kiss In Every Corner, Scuffing The Dust And The Cat. Love Rises Like Bread As We Go Bust.

Put Your Ear Down Close To Your Soul And Listen Hard.

Come, My Pretender, My Fritter, My Bubbler, My Chicken Biddy! Oh Succulent One, It Is But One Turn In The Road And I Would Be A Cannibal!

Depression Is Boring, I Think And I Would Do Better To Make Some Soup And Light Up The Cave.

And Thus Snow White Became The Prince's Bride. The Wicked Queen Was Invited To The Wedding Feast And When She Arrived There Were Red-hot Iron Shoes, In The Manner Of Red-hot Roller Skates, Clamped Upon Her Feet.

God Owns Heaven But He Craves The Earth.

Abundance Is Scooped From Abundance Yet Abundance Remains.

Somebody Who Should Have Been Born Is Gone.

Be Careful Of Words, / ... They Can Be Both Daisies And Bruises.

Being Kissed On The Back Of The Knee Is A Moth At The Windowscreen.

God Went Out Of Me As If The Sea Dried Up Like Sandpaper, As If The Sun Became A Latrine. God Went Out Of My Fingers. They Became Stone. My Body Became A Side Of Mutton And Despair Roamed The Slaughterhouse.

Earth, Earthriding Your Merry-go-roundtoward Extinction,right To The Rootsthickening The Oceans Like Gravy,festering In Your Caves,you Are Becoming A Latrine.

[i] Have Fantasies Of Killing Myself And Thus Being The Powerful One Not The Powerless One.

There Is Joy In All: In The Hair I Brush Each Morning, In The Cannon Towel, Newly Washed, That I Rub My Body With Each Morning.

The Future Is A Fog That Is Still Hanging Out Over The Sea, A Boat That Floats Home Or Does Not. The Trade Winds Blow Me, And I Do Not Know Where The Land Is; The Waves Fold Over Each Other; They Are In Love With Themselves; Sleeping In Their Own Skin; And I Float Over Them And I Do Not Know About Tomorrow.

God Has A Brown Voice, As Soft And Full As Beer.

As For Me, I Am A Watercolor. I Wash Off.

Yes I Try To Kill Myself In Small Amounts, An Innocuous Occupation. Actually I'm Hung Up On It.

I Am Out Of Practice At Living. You Are As Brave As A Motorcycle.

Despite My Asbestos Gloves, The Cough Is Filling Me With Black, And A Red Powder Seeps Through My Veins.

But My Future Is A Secret. / It Is As Shy As A Mole.

Talk To Me About Sadness. I Talk About It Too Much In My Own Head But I Never Mind Others Talking About It Either; I Occasionally Feel Like I Tremendously Need Others To Talk About It As Well.

Please God, We're All Right Here. Please Leave Us Alone. Don't Send Death In His Fat Red Suit And His Ho-ho Baritone.

I Lay There Silently, Hoarding My Small Dignity. I Did Not Ask About The Gate Or The Closet. I Did Not Question The Bedtime Ritual Where, On The Cold Bathroom Tiles, I Was Spread Out Daily And Examined For Flaws. I Did Not Know That My Bones, Those Solids, Those Pieces Of Sculpture Would Not Splinter.

My Mouth Blooms Like A Cut.

You Cutting The Lawn, Fixing The Machines, All This Leprous Day And Then More Vodka, More Soda And The Pond Forgiving Our Bodies, The Pond Sucking Out The Throb.

Well, One Gets Out Of Bed And The Planets Don't Always Hiss Or Muck Up The Day, Each Day.

I'm Hunting For The Truth. It Might Be A Kind Of Poetic Truth, And Not Just A Factual One, Because Behind Everything That Happens To You, There Is Another Truth, A Secret Life.

When I'm Writing, I Know I'm Doing The Thing I Was Born To Do.

No Matter Whose Bed You Die In The Bed Will Be Yours For Your Voyage Onto The Surgical Andiron Of God.

The Stars Are Pears That No One Can Reach, Even For A Wedding. Perhaps For A Death.

One Of My Secret Instructions To Myself As A Poet Is "whatever You Do, Don't Be Boring."

The Boys And Girls Are One Tonight. They Unbutton Blouses. They Unzip Flies. They Take Off Shoes. They Turn Off The Light. The Glimmering Creatures Are Full Of Lies. They Are Eating Each Other. They Are Overfed. At Night, Alone, I Marry The Bed.

There Is A Good Look That I Wear Like A Blood Clot. I Have Sewn It Over My Left Breast. I Have Made A Vocation Of It.

And What Of The Dead? They Lie Without Shoes In The Stone Boats. They Are More Like Stone Than The Sea Would Be If It Stopped. They Refuse To Be Blessed, Throat, Eye And Knucklebone.

All I Am Is The Trick Of Words Writing Themselves.

I Would Sell My Life To Avoid The Pain That Begins In The Crib With Its Bars Or Perhaps With Your First Breath When The Planets Drill Your Future Into You.

Poets Are Sitting In My Kitchen. Why Do These Poets Lie? Why Do Children Get Children And Did You Hear What It Said?

Yesterday I Did Not Want To Be Borrowed But This Is The Typewriter That Sits Before Me And Love Is Where Yesterday Is At.

Bless All Useful Objects, The Spoons Made Of Bone, The Mattress I Cook My Dreams Upon, The Typewriter That Is My Church With An Altar Of Keys Always Waiting.

Only My Books Anoint Me, And A Few Friends, Those Who Reach Into My Veins.

I Would Like To Think That No One Would Die Anymore If We All Believed In Daisies But The Worms Know Better, Don't They? They Slide Into The Ear Of A Corpse And Listen To His Great Sigh.

We Do Not Explain My Husband's Insane Abuse And We Do Not Say Why Your Wild-haired Wife Has Fled Or That My Father Opened Like A Walnut And Then Was Dead. Your Palms Fold Over Me Like Knees. Love Is The Only Use.

The Tongue, The Chinese Say, Is Like A Sharp Knife: It Kills Without Drawing Blood.

Bike Downtown, Stick Out Tongues At The Catholics. Or Form A Piss Club Where We All Go In The Bushes And Peek At Each Other's Sex.

When Someone Kisses Someone Or Flushes The Toilet It Is My Other Who Sits In A Ball And Cries. My Other Beats A Tin Drum In My Heart. My Other Hangs Up Laundry As I Try To Sleep. My Other Cries And Cries And Cries When I Put On A Cocktail Dress.

Home Is My Bethlehem, My Succoring Shelter, My Mental Hospital, My Wife, My Dam, My Husband, My Sir, My Womb, My Skull.

Oh, Darling, Let Your Body In, Let It Tie You In, In Comfort.

Craft Is A Trick You Make Up To Let You Write The Poem.

All Who Love Have Lied.

But Suicides Have A Special Language. Like Carpenters They Want To Know Which Tools. They Never Ask Why Build. Twice I Have So Simply Declared Myself, Have Possessed The Enemy, Eaten The Enemy, Have Taken On His Craft, His Magic.

Daisies In Water Are The Longest Lasting Flower You Can Give To Someone. Fact. Buy Daisies. Not Roses.

Dead Drunk Is The Term I Think Of, Insensible, Neither Cool Nor Warm, Without A Head Or A Foot. To Be Drunk Is To Be Intimate With A Fool.

I Did Not Know The Woman I Would Be Nor That Blood Would Bloom In Me Each Month Like An Exotic Flower, Nor That Children, Two Monuments, Would Break From Between My Legs.

Rats Live On No Evil Star

Now, In My Middle Age, About Nineteen In The Head I'd Say, I Am Rowing, I Am Rowing.

Poetry To Me Is Prayer.

We Talked Death With Burned-up Intensity, Both Of Us Drawn To It Like Moths To An Electric Light Bulb. Sucking On It!

My Sleeping Pill Is White. It Is A Splendid Pearl; It Floats Me Out Of Myself, My Stung Skin As Alien As A Loose Bolt Of Cloth.

Watch Out For Intellect, Because It Knows So Much It Knows Nothing And Leaves You Hanging Upside Down, Mouthing Knowledge As Your Heart Falls Out Of Your Mouth.

Father, You Died Once, Salted Down At Fifty-nine, Packed Down Like A Big Snow Angel, Wasn't That Enough?

I Who Was A House Full Of Bowel Movement, I Who Was A Defaced Altar, I Who Wanted To Crawl Toward God Could Not Move Nor Eat Bread.

You Who Have Inhabited Me In The Deepest And Most Broken Place, Are Going, Going

Once Upon A Time We Were All Born, Popped Out Like Jelly Rolls Forgetting Our Fishdom, The Pleasuring Seas, The Country Of Comfort, Spanked Into The Oxygens Of Death.

Everyone Has Left Me Except My Muse, That Good Nurse. She Stays In My Hand, A Mild White Mouse.

And Within The House Ashes Are Being Stuffed Into My Marriage, Fury Is Lapping The Walls, Dishes Crack On The Shelves, A Strangler Needs My Throat, The Daughter Has Ceased To Eat Anything.

I Leave You, Home, When I'm Ripped From The Doorstep By Commerce Or Fate. Then I Submit To The Awful Subway Of The World.

I Can Only Sign Over Everything, The House, The Dog, The Ladders, The Jewels, The Soul, The Family Tree, The Mailbox. Then I Can Sleep. Maybe.

Thumbs Grow Into My Throat. I Wear Slaps Like A Spot Of Rouge.

Once I Was A Couple. I Was My Own King And Queen With Cheese And Bread And Rosé On The Rocks Of Rockport.

I Have Forgiven All The Old Actors For Dying. A New One Comes On With The Same Lines, Like Large White Growths, In His Mouth. The Dancers Come On From The Wings, Perfectly Mated.

The Saints Come, As Human As A Mouth, With A Bag Of God In Their Backs, Like A Hunchback, They Come, They Come Marching In.

She Is So Naked And Singular. She Is The Sum Of Yourself And Your Dream. Climb Her Like A Monument, Step After Step. She Is Solid.

Blind With Love, My Daughter Has Cried Nightly For Horses, Those Long-necked Marchers And Churners That She Has Mastered, Any And All, Reigning Them In Like A Circus Hand.

I Raise My Pelvis To God So That It May Know The Truth Of How Flowers Smash Through The Long Winter.

Perhaps I Am No One. True, I Have A Body And I Cannot Escape From It. I Would Like To Fly Out Of My Head, But That Is Out Of The Question.

When They Turn The Sun On Again I'll Plant Children Under It, I'll Light Up My Soul With A Match And Let It Sing.

You Lay, A Small Knuckle On My White Bed; Lay, That Fist Like A Snail, Small And Strong At My Breast. Your Lips Are Animals; You Are Fed With Love. At First, Hunger Is Not Wrong.

She Suffers According To The Digits Of My Hate. I Hear The Filaments Of Alabaster. I Would Lie Down With Them And Lift My Madness Off Like A Wig. I Would Lie Outside In A Room Of Wool And Let The Snow Cover Me. Paris White Or Flake White Or Argentine, All In The Washbasin Of My Mouth, Calling “oh.” I Am Empty. I Am Witless. Death Is Here. There Is No Other Settlement.

As It Has Been Said: Love And A Cough Cannot Be Concealed. Even A Small Cough. Even A Small Love.

To Be Without God Is To Be A Snake / Who Wants To Swallow An Elephant.

O Starry Night, This Is How I Want To Die

I’ll Put It Out There: I Am Scarred By The Nostalgic Indicipherability Of My Own Desires; I An Engulfed By The Intimidating Unknown, Pushed Through Darkness And Dragged Down By The Irretrievable Past Sweetness Of My Memories.

I Try To Take Care And Be Gentle To Them. Words And Eggs Must Be Handled With Care. Once Broken They Are Impossible Things To Repair.

Impossible Things

And We Are Magic Talking To Itself, Noisy And Alone. I Am Queen Of All My Sins Forgotten. Am I Still Lost? Once I Was Beautiful. Now I Am Myself

I Wonder If The Artist Ever Lives His Life--he Is So Busy Recreating It.

Poor Thing. To Die And Never See Brooklyn.

I Remember The Stink Of The Liverwurst. How I Was Put On A Platter And Laid Between The Mayonnaise And The Bacon. The Rhythm Of The Refrigerator Had Been Disturbed.

Someone Is Dead. Even The Trees Know It, Those Poor Old Dancers Who Come On Lewdly, All Pea-green Scarfs And Spine Pole.

What's The Point Of Fighting The Dollars When All You Need Is A Warm Bed? When The Dog Barks You Let Him In. All We Need Is Someone To Let Us In. And One Other Thing: To Consider The Lilies In The Field.

Evil Is Maybe Lying To God. Or Better, Lying To Love.

I'm The Crazy One Who Thinks That Words Reach People.

It Doesn't Matter Who My Father Was; It Matters Who I Remember He Was.

Unless I Can Shake Myself Free Of My Dog, My Flag, Of My Desk, My Mind, I Find Life A Bit Of A Drag. Not Always, Mind You. Usually I'm Like My Frying Pan Useful, Graceful, Sturdy And With No Caper, No Plan.

The Summer Has Seized You, As When, Last Month In Amalfi, I Saw Lemons As Large As Your Desk-side Globe-that Miniature Map Of The World-and I Could Mention, Too, The Market Stalls Of Mushrooms And Garlic Bugs All Engorged. Or I Even Think Of The Orchard Next Door, Where The Berries Are Done And The Apples Are Beginning To Swell. And Once, With Our First Backyard,i Remember I Planted An Acre Of Yellow Beans We Couldn't Eat.

All In All, I'd Say, The World Is Strangling.

Maybe, Although My Heart Is A Kitten Of Butter, I Am Blowing It Up Like A Zeppelin.

If You Meet A Cross-eyed Person You Must Plunge Into The Grass, Alongside The Chilly Ants, Fish Through The Green Fingernails And Come Up With The Four-leaf Clover.

Take Your Foot Out Of The Graveyard, They Are Busy Being Dead.

I've Grown Tired Of Love You Are The Trouble With Me I Watch You Walk Right By

Big Heart, Wide As A Watermelon, But Wise As Birth, There Is So Much Abundance In The People I Have.

It Was As If A Morning-glory Had Bloomed In Her Throat, And All That Blue And Small Pollen Ate Into My Heart, Violent And Religious

This Is No Dream Just My Oily Life Where The People Are Alibis And The Street Is Unfindable For An Entire Lifetime.

I Am Younger Each Year At The First Snow.

No One To Hate Except The Slim Fish Of Memory That Slides In And Out Of My Brain.

In A Letter (no Matter How Quickly It Is Written Or Honestly Or Freely Or Lovingly) It Is More Possible To Be Loving And Lovable, More Possible To Reach Out And To Take In ... I Feel I Have Somehow Deceived You Into Thinking This Is Really A Human Relationship. It Is A Letter Relationship Between Humans.

In An Old Time There Was A King As Wise As A Dictionary.

The Place I Live In Is A Kind Of Maze And I Keep Seeking The Exit Or The Home.

Don’t Worry If They Say You’re Crazy. They Said That About Me And Yet I Was Saner Than All Of Them. I Knew. No Matter. You Know. Insane Or Sane, You Know. It’s A Good Thing To Know - No Matter What They Call It.

Though Rain Curses The Window Let The Poem Be Made.

Let There Be A Heaven So That Man May Outlive His Grasses.

Life Is A Trick, Life Is A Kitten In A Sack.

I Am Not At Home In Myself. I Am My Own Stranger.

I Have Been Cut In Two.

I Find Now, Swallowing One Teaspoon Of Pain, That It Drops Downward To The Past Where It Mixes With Last Year’s Cupful And Downward Into A Decade’s Quart And Downward Into A Lifetime’s Ocean. I Alternate Treading Water And Deadman’s Float.

Poems Aren't Postcards To Send Home.

I Keep Feeling That There Isn't One Poem Being Written By Any One Of Us - Or A Book Or Anything Like That. The Whole Life Of Us Writers, The Whole Product I Guess I Mean, Is The One Long Poem - A Community Effort If You Will. It's All The Same Poem. It Doesn't Belong To Any One Writer - It's God's Poem Perhaps. Or God's People's Poem.

The Soul Was Not Cured, It Was As Full As A Clothes Closet Of Dresses That Did Not Fit.

Now I Am Just An Elderly Lady Who Is Full Of Spleen, Who Humps Around Greater Boston In A God-awful Hat, Who Never Lived And Yet Outlived Her Time, Hating Men And Dogs And Democrats.

If I Could Blame It On All The Mothers And Fathers Of The World, They Of The Lessons, The Pellets Of Power, They Of The Love Surrounding You Like Batter ... Blame It On God Perhaps? He Of The First Opening That Pushed Us All Into Our First Mistakes? No, I'll Blame It On Man For Man Is God And Man Is Eating The Earth Up Like A Candy Bar And Not One Of Them Can Be Left Alone With The Ocean For It Is Known He Will Gulp It All Down. The Stars (possibly) Are Safe. At Least For The Moment. The Stars Are Pears That No One Can Reach, Even For A Wedding. Perhaps For A Death.

I Am Teaching... This Year It's Kind Of Like Having A Love Affair With A Rhinoceros.

Sometimes The Soul Takes Pictures Of Things It Has Wished For, But Never Seen.

The Body Is A Damn Hard Thing To Kill.

The Man Inside Of Woman Ties A Knot So That They Will Never Again Be Separate.

Death, I Need My Little Addiction To You. I Need That Tiny Voice Who, Even As I Rise From The Sea, All Woman, All There, Says Kill Me, Kill Me.

For I Could Not Read Or Speak And On The Long Nights I Could Not Turn The Moon Off Or Count The Lights Of Cars Across The Ceiling.

The Marriage Twists, Holds Firm, A Sailor's Knot.

All Considerations For These Human Remains! They Must Have An Escort! They Are Classified!

Oh Sharp Diamond, My Mother! I Could Not Count The Cost Of All Your Faces, Your Moods That Present That I Lost. Sweet Girl, My Deathbed, My Jewel-fingered Lady...

Women Tell Time By The Body. They Are Like Clocks. They Are Always Fastened To The Earth, Listening For Its Small Animal Noises.

Loving Me With My Shoes Off Means Loving My Long Brown Legs, Sweet Dears, As Good As Spoons; And My Feet, Those Two Children Let Out To Play Naked.

We Are All Writing God's Poem.

I Rot On The Wall, My Own Dorian Gray.

Love Your Self's Self Where It Lives.

One Can't Build Little White Picket Fences To Keep Nightmares Out.

Stop The Darkness And Its Amputations And Find The Real Mccoy In The Private Holiness Of My Hands.

Yes, I Know. Death Sits With His Key In My Lock. Not One Day Is Taken For Granted. Even Nursery Rhymes Have Put Me In Hock.

But Even In A Telephone Booth Evil Can Seep Out Of The Receiver And We Must Cover It With A Mattress, And Then Tear It From Its Roots And Bury It, Bury It.

My Heart Is On A Budget. It Keeps Me On The Brink.

Fee-fi-fo-fum - Now I'm Borrowed. Now I'm Numb.

The Trouble With Therapy Is That It Makes Life Go Backwards.

This Is What Poems Are: With Mercy For The Greedy, They Are The Tongue's Wrangle, The World's Pottage, The Rat's Star.

All The Oxygen Of The World Was In Them. All The Feet Of The Babies Of The World Were In Them. All The Crotches Of The Angels Of The World Were In Them. All The Morning Kisses Of Philadelphia Were In Them.

The Sky Breaks. It Sags And Breathes Upon My Face. In The Presence Of Mine Enemies, Mine Enemies The World Is Full Of Enemies. There Is No Safe Place.

Love? Be It Man. Be It Woman. It Must Be A Wave You Want To Glide In On, Give Your Body To It, Give Your Laugh To It, Give, When The Gravelly Sand Takes You, Your Tears To The Land. To Love Another Is Something Like Prayer And Can't Be Planned, You Just Fall Into Its Arms Because Your Belief Undoes Your Disbelief.

I Am Alone Here In My Own Mind. There Is No Map And There Is No Road. It Is One Of A Kind Just As Yours Is.

My Life Has Appeared Unclothed In Court, Detail By Detail, Death-bone Witness By Death-bone Witness, And I Was Shamed At The Verdict.

For Forty Days, For Forty Nights Jesus Put One Foot In Front Of The Other And The Man He Carried, If It Was A Man, Became Heavier And Heavier.

It Is June. I Am Tired Of Being Brave.

When I Lie Down To Love, Old Dwarf Heart Shakes Her Head. Like An Imbecile She Was Born Old.

Do You Like Me?” No Answer. Silence Bounced, Fell Off His Tongue And Sat Between Us And Clogged My Throat. It Slaughtered My Trust. It Tore Cigarettes Out Of My Mouth. We Exchanged Blind Words, And I Did Not Cry, I Did Not Beg, But Blackness Filled My Ears, Blackness Lunged In My Heart, And Something That Had Been Good, A Sort Of Kindly Oxygen, Turned Into A Gas Oven.

The Family Story Tells, And It Was Told True, Of My Great-grandfather Who Begat Eight Genius Children And Bought Twelve Almost New Grand Pianos. He Left A Considerable Estate When He Died.

Women Are Born Twice.

My Safe, Safe Psychosis Is Broken. It Was Hard. It Was Made Of Stone. It Covered My Face Like A Mask. But It Has Cracked.

Pulling Off The Fat Diamond Engagement Ring, Pulling Off The Elopement Wedding Ring, And Holding Them, Clicking Them In Thumb And Forefinger, The Indent Of Twenty-five Years, Like A Tiny Rip Leaving Its Mark.

I Am A Collection Of Dismantled Almosts.

Let The Light Be Called Day So That Men May Grow Corn Or Take Busses.

What A Lay Me Down This Is With Two Pink, Two Orange, Two Green, Two White Goodnights.

God Went Out Of Me As If The Sea Dried Up Like Sandpaper, As If The Sun Became A Latrine.

I Said, The Poets Are There I Hear Them Singing And Lying Around Their Round Table And Around Me Still.

Watch Out For Love (unless It Is True, And Every Part Of You Says Yes Including The Toes), It Will Wrap You Up Like A Mummy, And Your Scream Won't Be Heard And None Of Your Running Will Run.

If The Doctors Cure Then The Sun Sees It. If The Doctors Kill Then The Earth Hides It. The Doctors Should Fear Arrogance More Than Cardiac Arrest.

Cinderella And The Prince Lived, They Say, Happily Ever After, Like Two Dolls In A Museum Case Never Bothered By Diapers Or Dust, Never Arguing Over The Timing Of An Egg, Never Telling The Same Story Twice.

Suicides Have A Special Language. Like Carpenters They Want To Know Which Tools. They Never Ask Why Build.

I Cannot Walk An Inch / Without Trying To Walk To God.

I Have A Black Look I Do Not Like. It Is A Mask I Try On. I Migrate Toward It And Its Frog Sits On My Lips And Defecates.

I Was Spread Out Dailyand Examined For Flaws.

A Woman Who Writes Feels Too Much.

I Imitatea Memory Of Beliefthat I Do Not Own.

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