The Suffering of Anne Sexton
Beneath some luminous-ity
That pours down from above
Both thru the moon and sun...
Her lean long body on the Run
Born up on fragile wings that could not melt
And rising to the blueness of the sky
That is beyond the indistinct
What it could mean
To be insane and even strange
What does it mean...
.....the brain ?
The barking dog becomes a prairie beast
Kept out by doors
And children looming predators
Are enemies of time
.....The lovers call they knock and call
The husband in the chair
The husband wrapped in woolen rugs
Kayo Kayo ..wool in his ears
Wool on his lips
His cooling heart is wrapped in wool
His cooling heart is far away.
Her naked fingers
Fingers stripped of rings
The vodka glass full to the brim
And sipping rowing rowing sipping
..the act of rowing
In that awful boat to God...
....she slipped away
Her mother’s fur close to her skin
And she ..limp in a coat of fur
Dead as the leathery dead she lay
Alone
Without a happy note.
Upon a garage floor.
The home is mats and kitchen plates
There are five chairs all painted black
And walls that chill the heart
Behind your back.
Kristine Byrne sept 2013