1888.
1888. a new series by wunderkind ellen rogers. my heart is caught in my throat.
the fierceness of female.
i am spinning.
i am spinning on the lips,
they remove my shadow,
my phantom from my past,
they invented a timetable of tongues,
that take up all my attention.
wherein there is no room.
no bed.
the clock does not tick
except where it vibrates my 4000 pulses,
and where all was absent,
all is two,
touching like a choir of butterflies,
and like the ocean,
pushing toward land
and receding
and pushing
with a need that gallops
all over my skin,
yelling at the reefs.
i unknit.
words fly out of place
and i, long into the desert,
drink and drink
and bow my head to that meadow
the breast, the melon in it,
and then the intoxicating flower of it.
our hands that stroke each other
the nipples like baby starfish-
to make our lips sucking into lunatic rings
until they are bubbles,
our fingers naked as petals
and the world pulses on a swing
i raise my pelvis to god
so that it may know the truth of how
flowers smash through the long winter.
-anne sexton 1976.
Category Article Anne Sexton, ellen rogers
