Author: Anne Sexton

What can I do with this bayonet? Make a rose bush of it? Poke it into the moon? Shave my […]

A red-hot needle Hangs out of him, he steers by it As if it were a rudder, he Would get […]

They sit in a row Outside the kindergarten, Black, red, brown, all With those brass buckles. Remember when you couldn’t […]

I’m afraid of needles. I’m tired of rubber sheets and tubes. I’m tired of faces that I don’t know And […]

The day of fire is coming, the thrush, Will fly ablaze like a little sky rocket, The beetle will sink […]

You said the anger would come back Just as the love did. I have a black look I do not […]

Good for visiting hospitals or charitable work. Take some time to attend to your health. Surely I will be disquieted […]

When man, Enters woman, Like the surf biting the shore, Again and again, And the woman opens her mouth with […]

I hired a carpenter To build my coffin And last night I lay in it, Braced by a pillow, Sniffing […]

Come friend, I have an old story to tell you- Listen. Sit down beside me and listen. My face is […]

I am the love killer, I am murdering the music we thought so special, That blazed between us, over and […]

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember. I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage. Then the almost […]

This is the key to it. This is the key to everything. Preciously. I am worse than the gamekeeper’s children […]

for my friend Ruth, who urges me to make an Appointment for the Sacrament of Confesson Concerning your letter in […]

I was tired of being a woman, Tired of the spoons and the post, Tired of my mouth and my […]

Put on a clean shirt Before you die, some Russian said. Nothing with drool, please, No egg spots, no blood, […]

She is all there. She was melted carefully down for you And cast up from your childhood, Cast up from […]

Under my bowels, yellow with smoke, It waits. Under my eyes, those milk bunnies, It waits. It is waiting. It […]

Leaping, leaping, leaping, Down line by line, Growling at the cadavers, Filling the holy jugs with their piss, Falling into […]

The summer sun ray Shifts through a suspicious tree. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow It sucks […]

You, Doctor Martin, walk From breakfast to madness. Late August, I speed through the antiseptic tunnel Where the moving dead […]

By the first of August The invisible beetles began To snore and the grass was As tough as hemp and […]

Moist, moist, The heat leaking through the hinges, Sun baking the roof like a pie And I and thou and […]

On the southwest side of Capri We found a little unknown grotto Where no people were and we Entered it […]

What is death, I ask. What is life, you ask. I give them both my buttocks, My two wheels rolling […]

Earth, earth, Riding your merry-go-round Toward extinction, Right to the roots, Thickening the oceans like gravy, Festering in your caves, […]

Some ghosts are women, Neither abstract nor pale, Their breasts as limp as killed fish. Not witches, but ghosts Who […]

Almost yesterday, those gentle ladies stole To their baths in Atlantic Cuty, for the lost Rites of the first sea […]

For the angels who inhabit this town, Although their shape constantly changes, Each night we leave some cold potatoes And […]

My mouth blooms like a cut. I’ve been wronged all year, tedious Nights, nothing but rough elbows in them And […]