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More poems by Anne SextonAnne Sexton | Print this page.Print | Order a PoetryNotes Analysis of this poem.Analysis | View and Write CommentsComments (1)

For John, Who Begs Me Not To Enquire Further

Anne Sexton

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
where the cracked mirror
or my own selfish death
outstared me.
And if I tried
to give you something else,
something outside of myself,
you would not know
that the worst of anyone
can be, finally,
an accident of hope.
I tapped my own head;
it was a glass, an inverted bowl.
It is a small thing
to rage in your own bowl.
At first it was private.
Then it was more than myself;
it was you, or your house
or your kitchen.
And if you turn away
because there is no lesson here
I will hold my awkward bowl,
with all its cracked stars shining
like a complicated lie,
and fasten a new skin around it
as if I were dressing an orange
or a strange sun.
Not that it was beautiful,
but that I found some order there.
There ought to be something special
for someone
in this kind of hope.
This is something I would never find
in a lovelier place, my dear,
although your fear is anyone's fear,
like an invisible veil between us all...
and sometimes in private,
my kitchen, your kitchen,
my face, your face.


Submitted by Venus

Added: 2 Jun 2002 | Last Read: 4 Jul 2008 10:17 AM | Viewed: 7821 times

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URL: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/4567/ | Viewed on 4 July 2008.
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