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More poems by Anne SextonAnne Sexton | Print this page.Print | View and Write CommentsComments | Books by Anne SextonBooks by Anne Sexton

Lessons In Hunger

Anne Sexton

"Do you like me?"
I asked the blue blazer.
No answer.
Silence bounced out of his books.
Silence fell off his tongue
and sat between us
and clogged my throat.
It slaughtered my trust.
It tore cigarettes out of my mouth.
We exchanged blind words,
and I did not cry,
and I did not beg,
blackness lunged in my heart,
and something that had been good,
a sort of kindly oxygen,
turned into a gas oven.
Do you like me?
How absurd!
What's a question like that?
What's a silence like that?
And what am I hanging around for,
riddled with what his silence said?

Added: 31 Aug 2001 | Last Read: 8 Jun 2025 2:13 AM | Viewed: 11783 times

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URL: http://plagiarist.com/poetry/588/ | Viewed on 8 June 2025.
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