"Her Kind"

by Anne Sexton

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. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods; fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves: whining, rearranging the disaligned. A woman like that is misunderstood. I have been her kind. I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, learning the last bright routes, survivor where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind. A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind.

penny nightmares

try to turn away
turn into the gray cocoon
float over the frozen ocean
bob and weave into
comfortable nothingness
it's these penny nightmares
it's a terrifying thing, being seen

but every time you try to turn
I will grab one corner
of your fiery wings
get burned
and pull you from the flame
of infinite space
watery time
painful thought

tuck you under my arm
and run
to the warm hearth
the soft couch
the laden table
tuck you inside
and let you use
my heart for your pillow

reminders

scars
are a physical history
of pain

shoulder
straight tequila
from the bottle
blurred out fireworks
he throws me on the ground
"whore"
everyone sees with pity

nose
sliding off
the big green truck
when you're two years old
only mama
remembers the blood

arms
out of the bar
taking his silver car
so he kisses me
with a closed fist
black eye,
bloody lip
slivered shards

knee
off the bike
on the gravel
taking risks

foot
walk him to the
steel front door
rehab
and go straight to
the brown bottle
washing my white party dress
with red wine

jaded alarm
these scars
these arms
these harms

stinger

pink lips puff

drawn from

a fleshy bow

flowing poison

the dart

of his tongue

and

I go

down

gulleys

So tired,

moreso tired

than ever before.

Lower eyelids fill with gravel

and drop

to the floor

to catch sideways waves

of rain.

Busy murdering

in my sleep.

A real life, a routine,

engulfed by anxiety

and chemical kisses.

The six inch hunting knife

in my glove box.

He uses it to open

a bag of fennel seeds.

I watch him carefully.

Taking up the blade, I

cut my shadow self loose.

She slivers blackly

through the grass,

winds up dirty talking

in the corner of a jail cell,

eating bacon and mayonnaise

sandwiches in bed at midnight.

Ugly pressure

slowly creeps

up my leg,

up my toe.

The amputated shadow,

darkling, she knows,

she wrestles

a bag of dreams

over my head.

Love Minus Zero

by Bob Dylan

My love she speaks like silence,
Without ideals or violence,
She doesn't have to say she's faithful,
Yet she's true, like ice, like fire.
People carry roses,
Make promises by the hours,
My love she laughs like the flowers,
Valentines can't buy her.

In the dime stores and bus stations,
People talk of situations,
Read books, repeat quotations,
Draw conclusions on the wall.
Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.

The cloak and dagger dangles,
Madams light the candles.
In ceremonies of the horsemen,
Even the pawn must hold a grudge.
Statues made of match sticks,
Crumble into one another,
My love winks, she does not bother,
She knows too much to argue or to judge.

The bridge at midnight trembles,
The country doctor rambles,
Bankers' nieces seek perfection,
Expecting all the gifts that wise men bring.
The wind howls like a hammer,
The night blows cold and rainy,
My love she's like some raven
At my window with a broken wing.

genuis of the new year

Sitting in the grown up house

in the loom of maya.

Two years without a drink

is the history of an epoch.

We are engaged to wed

and we are the circlemakers,

the lords of the dawn,

in a beautiful home,

a secret square of eight.

While enjoying my work

I consider the apocalypse,

and by sheer genuis

we get things done.

cinderella story

This is no cinderella story

so let's get lean, get comfortable

straight down

to bare and bloody knuckles.

This old pal told me

that good wives know

how to hold men down.

There is only one time

I'll hold a man down.

People glance mutely

through the bars

of social conditioning cages

waiting lamely

for the dangled carrot

of a taste of pussy or a football playoff,

little monkeys living out lives

of hollow desperation.

Sometimes a woman,

sometimes a man,

doing just what I like

if it makes me free of the cage,

if it makes me the eternal bitch of the world.

Let's get married, sure,

climb up into the woods

do the thing,

climb back down again

exactly the same.

Maybe born from this love,

mighty and unrestrained,

comes a little child

who sees those invisible bars

for herself

and breathes herself free.

A neat trick.

She'll show her friends

this game we all play

pretend follow the leader-

only there is no leader!

A tiny child army

of kids who won't play along.

Then they'll start their own game

and hopefully

it will be nicer than this one.

gunshot night

Waiting for you

Through stone silences

Red-hued and glowing

Winged embers

In the corner of this mind

Always trapped, screaming softly

Dancing with shame

Cloaked in humiliation

Thorny towers rising

In gunshot night

Black eyes and callouses

Sweat-slicked back groaning

It’s all I remember

Dying beneath you