Barefoot
Loving me with my shows off Means loving my long brown legs, Sweet dears, as good as spoons; And my feet, those two children Let out to play naked. Intricate nubs, My toes. No
Some Foreign Letters
I knew you forever and you were always old, Soft white lady of my heart. Surely you would scold Me for sitting up late, reading your letters, As if these foreign postmarks were meant
The Bells
Today the circus poster Is scabbing off the concrete wall And the children have forgotten If they knew at all. Father, do you remember? Only the sound remains, The distant thump of the good
The Room Of My Life
Here, In the room of my life The objects keep changing. Ashtrays to cry into, The suffering brother of the wood walls, The forty-eight keys of the typewriter Each an eyeball that is never
The Fury Of Jewels And Coal
Many a miner has gone Into the deep pit To receive the dust of a kiss, An ore-cell. He has gone with his lamp Full of mole eyes Deep deep and has brought forth
All My Pretty Ones
Father, this year’s jinx rides us apart Where you followed our mother to her cold slumber; A second shock boiling its stone to your heart, Leaving me here to shuffle and disencumber You from
Love Letter Written In A Burning Building
I am in a crate, the crate that was ours, Full of white shirts and salad greens, The icebox knocking at our delectable knocks, And I wore movies in my eyes, And you wore
Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild, Wild Women
(from a song) Perhaps I was born kneeling, Born coughing on the long winter, Born expecting the kiss of mercy, Born with a passion for quickness And yet, as things progressed, I learned early
Her Kind
I have gone out, a possessed witch, Haunting the black air, braver at night; Dreaming evil, I have done my hitch Over the plain houses, light by light: Lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
If you danced from midnight To six A. M. who would understand? The runaway boy Who chucks it all To live on the Boston Common On speed and saltines, Pissing in the duck pond,
The Fury Of Rainstorms
The rain drums down like red ants, Each bouncing off my window. The ants are in great pain And they cry out as they hit As if their little legs were only Stitche don
Crossing The Atlantic
We sail out of season into on oyster-gray wind, Over a terrible hardness. Where Dickens crossed with mal de mer In twenty weeks or twenty days I cross toward him in five. Wraped in
Live
Live or die, but don’t poison everything… Well, death’s been here For a long time It has a hell of a lot To do with hell And suspicion of the eye And the religious
Elizabeth Gone
1. You lay in the nest of your real death, Beyond the print of my nervous fingers Where they touched your moving head; Your old skin puckering, your lungs’ breath Grown baby short as
Us
I was wrapped in black Fur and white fur and You undid me and then You placed me in gold light And then you crowned me, While snow fell outside The door in diagonal
The Wifebeater
There will be mud on the carpet tonight And blood in the gravy as well. The wifebeater is out, The childbeater is out Eating soil and drinking bullets from a cup. He strides bback
Housewife
Some women marry houses. It’s another kind of skin; it has a heart, A mouth, a liver and bowel movements. The walls are permanent and pink. See how she sits on her knees all
Words
Be careful of words, Even the miraculous ones. For the miraculous we do our best, Sometimes they swarm like insects And leave not a sting but a kiss. They can be as good as
Said The Poet To The Analyst
My business is words. Words are like labels, Or coins, or better, like swarming bees. I confess I am only broken by the sources of things; As if words were counted like dead bees
A Story For Rose On The Midnight Flight To Boston
Until tonight they were separate specialties, Different stories, the best of their own worst. Riding my warm cabin home, I remember Betsy’s Laughter; she laughed as you did, Rose, at the first Story. Someday,
The Assassin
The correct death is written in. I will fill the need. My bow is stiff. My bow is in readiness. I am the bullet and the hook. I am cocked and held ready. In
Rumpelstiltskin
Inside many of us Is a small old man Who wants to get out. No bigger than a two-year-old Whom you’d call lamb chop Yet this one is old and malformed. His head is
Dreaming The Breasts
Mother, Strange goddess face Above my milk home, That delicate asylum, I ate you up. All my need took You down like a meal. What you gave I remember in a dream: The freckled
Music Swims Back To Me
Wait Mister. Which way is home? They turned the light out And the dark is moving in the corner. There are no sign posts in this room, Four ladies, over eighty, In diapers every
Cinderella
You always read about it: The plumber with the twelve children Who wins the Irish Sweepstakes. From toilets to riches. That story. Or the nursemaid, Some luscious sweet from Denmark Who captures the oldest
The Break Away
Your daisies have come On the day of my divorce: The courtroom a cement box, A gas chamber for the infectious Jew in me And a perhaps land, a possibly promised land For the
For Johnny Pole On The Forgotten Beach
In his tenth July some instinct Taught him to arm the waiting wave, A giant where its mouth hung open. He rode on the lip that buoyed him there And buckled him under. The
A Curse Against Elegies
Oh, love, why do we argue like this? I am tired of all your pious talk. Also, I am tired of all the dead. They refuse to listen, So leave them alone. Take your
The Division Of Parts
1. Mother, my Mary Gray, Once resident of Gloucester And Essex County, A photostat of your will Arrived in the mail today. This is the division of money. I am one third Of your
The Civil War
I am torn in two But I will conquer myself. I will dig up the pride. I will take scissors And cut out the beggar. I will take a crowbar And pry out the
The Author Of The Jesus Papers Speaks
In my dream I milked a cow, The terrible udder Like a great rubber lily Sweated in my fingers And as I yanked, Waiting for the moon juice, Waiting for the white mother, Blood
The Legend Of The One-Eyed Man
Like Oedipus I am losing my sight. LIke Judas I have done my wrong. Their punishment is over; The shame and disgrace of it Are all used up. But as for me, Look into
Angels Of The Love Affair
“Angels of the love affair, do you know that other, The dark one, that other me?” 1. ANGEL OF FIRE AND GENITALS Angel of fire and genitals, do you know slime, That green mama
The Wedding Ring Dance
I dance in circles holding The moth of the marriage, Thin, sticky, fluttering Its skirts, its webs. The moth oozing a tear, Or is it a drop of urine? The moth, grinning like a
The Fallen Angels
They come on to my clean Sheet of paper and leave a Rorschach blot. They do not do this to be mean, They do it to give me a sign They want me, as
For God While Sleeping
Sleeping in fever, I am unfair To know just who you are: Hung up like a pig on exhibit, The delicate wrists, The beard drooling blood and vinegar; Hooked to your own weight, Jolting
The Play
I am the only actor. It is difficult for one woman To act out a whole play. The play is my life, My solo act. My running after the hands And never catching up.
For John, Who Begs Me Not To Enquire Further
Not that it was beautiful, But that, in the end, there was A certain sense of order there; Something worth learning In that narrow diary of my mind, In the commonplaces of the asylum
Cockroach
Roach, foulest of creatures, Who attacks with yellow teeth And an army of cousins big as shoes, You are lumps of coal that are mechanized And when I turn on the light you scuttle
The Red Dance
There was a girl Who danced in the city that night, That April 22nd, All along the Charles River. It was as if one hundred men were watching Or do I mean the one
Suicide Note
“You speak to me of narcissism but I reply that it is A matter of my life” – Artaud “At this time let me somehow bequeath all the leftovers To my daughters and their
Where It Was At Back Then
Husband, Last night I dreamt They cut off your hands and feet. Husband, You whispered to me, Now we are both incomplete. Husband, I held all four In my arms like sons and daughters.
The Fury Of God's Goodbye
One day He Tipped His top hat And walked Out of the room, Ending the argument. He stomped off Saying: I don’t give guarantees. I was left Quite alone Using up the darkness I
More Than Myself
Not that it was beautiful, But that, in the end, there was A certain sense of order there; Something worth learning In that narrow diary of my mind, In the commonplaces of the asylum
Christmas Eve
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, Your portrait flickered all night
That Day
This is the desk I sit at And this is the desk where I love you too much And this is the typewriter that sits before me Where yesterday only your body sat before
The Big Heart
“Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold.” – From an essay by W. B. Yeats Big heart, Wide as a watermelon, But wise as birth, There is so much
Going Gone
Over stone walls and barns, Miles from the black-eyed Susans, Over circus tents and moon rockets You are going, going. You who have inhabited me In the deepest and most broken place, Are going,
The Interrogation Of The Man Of Many Hearts
Who’s she, that one in your arms? She’s the one I carried my bones to And built a house that was just a cot And built a life that was over an hour And
The Expatriates
My dear, it was a moment To clutch for a moment So that you may believe in it And believing is the act of love, I think, Even in the telling, wherever it went.
The Frog Prince
Frau Doktor, Mama Brundig, Take out your contacts, Remove your wig. I write for you. I entertain. But frogs come out Of the sky like rain. Frogs arrive With an ugly fury. You are
The Earth
God loafs around heaven, Without a shape But He would like to smoke His cigar Or bite His fingernails And so forth. God owns heaven But He craves the earth, The earth with its
The Fury Of Cooks
Herbs, garlic, Cheese, please let me in! Souffles, salad, Parker House rolls, Please let me in! Cook Helen, Why are you so cross, Why is your kitchen verboten? Couldn’t you just teach me To
The Exorcists
And I solemnly swear On the chill of secrecy That I know you not, this room never, The swollen dress I wear, Nor the anonymous spoons that free me, Nor this calendar nor the
The Death Baby
1. DREAMS I was an ice baby. I turned to sky blue. My tears became two glass beads. My mouth stiffened into a dumb howl. They say it was a dream But I remember
Anna Who Was Mad
Anna who was mad, I have a knife in my armpit. When I stand on tiptoe I tap out messages. Am I some sort of infection? Did I make you go insane? Did I
The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator
The end of the affair is always death. She’s my workshop. Slippery eye, Out of the tribe of myself my breath Finds you gone. I horrify Those who stand by. I am fed. At
Gods
Ms. Sexton went out looking for the gods. She began looking in the sky -expecting a large white angel with a blue crotch. No one. She looked next in all the learned books And
The Errand
I’ve been going right on, page by page, Since we last kissed, two long dolls in a cage, Two hunger-mongers throwing a myth in and out, Double-crossing out lives with doubt, Leaving us separate
Admonitions To A Special Person
Watch out for power, For its avalanche can bury you, Snow, snow, snow, smothering your mountain. Watch out for hate, It can open its mouth and you’ll fling yourself out To eat off your
The Double Image
1. I am thirty this November. You are still small, in your fourth year. We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer, Flapping in the winter rain. Falling flat and washed. And I remember
Cripples And Other Stories
My doctor, the comedian I called you every time And made you laugh yourself When I wrote this silly rhyme… Each time I give lectures or gather in the grants you send me off
Small Wire
My faith Is a great weight Hung on a small wire, As doth the spider Hang her baby on a thin web, As doth the vine, Twiggy and wooden, Hold up grapes Like eyeballs,
The Children
The children are all crying in their pens And the surf carries their cries away. They are old men who have seen too much, Their mouths are full of dirty clothes, The tongues poverty,
The Starry Night
That does not keep me from having a terrible need of shall I say the word religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars. Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to
Buying The Whore
You are the roast beef I have purchased And I stuff you with my very own onion. You are a boat I have rented by the hour And I steer you with my rage
The Abortion
Somebody who should have been born Is gone. Just as the earth puckered its mouth, Each bud puffing out from its knot, I changed my shoes, and then drove south. Up past the Blue