Author: Anne Sexton

Jean, death comes close to us all, Flapping its awful wings at us And the gluey wings crawl up our […]

It is half winter, half spring, And Barbara and I are standing Confronting the ocean. Its mouth is open very […]

This singing Is a kind of dying, A kind of birth, A votive candle. I have a dream-mother Who sings […]

Just once I knew what life was for. In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood; Walked there along the Charles River, […]

If I could blame it all on the weather, The snow like the cadaver’s table, The trees turned into knitting […]

It was also my violent heart that broke, Falling down the front hall stairs. It was also a message I […]

The speaker in this case Is a middle-aged witch, me- Tangled on my two great arms, My face in a […]

His awful skin Stretched out by some tradesman Is like my skin, here between my fingers, A kind of webbing, […]

Oh down at the tavern The children are singing Around their round table And around me still. Did you hear […]

Because there was no other place To flee to, I came back to the scene of the disordered senses, Came […]

There can be certain potions Needled in the clock For the body’s fall from grace, To untorture and to plead […]

Being kissed on the back Of the knee is a moth At the windowscreen and Yes my darling a dot […]

It is in the small things we see it. The child’s first step, As awesome as an earthquake. The first […]

In Memoriam What’s missing is the eyeballs In each of us, but it doesn’t matter Because you’ve got the bucks, […]

We are born with luck Which is to say with gold in our mouth. As new and smooth as a […]

Let the flowers make a journey On Monday so that I can see Ten daisies in a blue vase With […]

Sing me a thrush, bone. Sing me a nest of cup and pestle. Sing me a sweetbread fr an old […]

Coon, why did you come to this dance With a mask on? Why not the tin man And his rainbow […]

Who will forgive me for the things I do? With no special legend of God to refer to, With my […]

“Do you like me?” I asked the blue blazer. No answer. Silence bounced out of his books. Silence fell off […]