You Learned an Anne Sexton Poem
You learned an Anne Sexton poem
by heart. It took weeks of steady practice:
on the bus, tending communal gardens, house sitting
for Austin elites.
You learned an Anne Sexton poem,
to share at my Quaker wedding. We worried over one word,
a tiny one that made the stanza sing. But would my mother want to hear it,
from the pew? Would family relations, late of the woods, warm
to amber gathered in the gullet and pressed
out onto the waters?
You learned an Anne Sexton poem —
even the word kids love to say, or once did so.
The sort some drink for kink. Nestled harmlessly in the late morning,
it could hurt no one. Still, I asked the word to wait in the foyer with the cake
and cheese, nursery-timed so it wouldn’t wail in the middle
of our summer silence.
You learned an Anne Sexton poem,
and I am thinking of what we deny to please
churched in-laws, the thin side of our souls. I want to tell you,
the marriage worked. We create beautiful things
together, but no beautiful child.
Do you remember the Anne Sexton poem
you learned, for us? I saw you stand to deliver her lines,
and heard the wide word you kindly
never spoke.