Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Poetry Slam Tuesdays: 'His Selection, Part Time'









For the second week of the rainbow poetry slams, I'm not really feeling up to scaring you with my own thoughts, so I'm giving you the genius of Anne Sexton instead.





YOU ALL KNOW THE STORY OF THE OTHER WOMAN

It's a little Walden.
She is private in her breathbed
as his body takes off and flies,
flies straight as an arrow.

But it's a bad translation.
Daylight is nobody's friend.

God comes in like a landlord
and flashes on his brassy lamp.
Now she is just so-so.
He puts his bones back on,
turning the clock back an hour.

She knows flesh, that skin balloon,
the unbound limbs, the boards,
the roof, the removable roof.
She is his selection, part time.
You know the story too! Look,
when it is over he places her,
like a phone, back on the hook.


Anne Sexton, from Love Poems, 1969.

That ending kills me. Absolutely kills me.

4 comments:

  1. I didn't realize that we had daylight savings time in 1969.

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  2. Yeah, Ben Franklin invented DST, actually.

    Alison, you might check out http://greatpoets.livejournal.com . Quality stuff posted there, and they index everything by poet.

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  3. Looooooooove Anne Sexton!!! And I have you to thank for that!!! : )

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