Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems

"No. Not really red,but the color of a rose when it bleeds."

"I find now, swallowing one teaspoon of pain, that it drops downward to the past where it mixes with last year’s cupful and downward into a decade’s quart and downward into a lifetime’s ocean. I alternate treading water and deadman’s float."

"Taking into consideration all your lovelinesswhy can't you burn your bootsoles and yourdraft card? How can you sit there saying yesto war? You'll be a pauper when you die, soreboy. Dead, while I still live at our addresss. Oh my brother, why do you keep making planswhen I am at seizures of hearts and hands?Come dance the dance, the Papa-Mama dance;bring costumes from the suitcase pasted Ille de France, the S. S. Gripsholm. Papa's London Harness case he took abroad and kept i our attic laced with old leather straps for storage and hisscholar's robes, black licorice - that metamorphosiswith it's crimson blood. "The Papa and Mama Dance"

"Put your mouthful of words away and come with me to watch the lilies open in such a field, growing there like yachts, slowly steering their petals without nurses or clocks."

"Many women are singing together of this: one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine, one is at the aquarium tending a seal, one is dull at the wheel of her Ford, one is at the toll gate collecting,one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona, one is straddling a cello in Russia,one is shifting pots on the stove in Egypt,one is painting her bedroom walls moon color, one is dying but remembering a breakfast, one is stretching on her mat in Thailand, one is wiping the ass of her child,one is staring out the window of a train in the middle of Wyoming and one is anywhere and some are everywhere and all seem to be singing, although some can not sing a note."

"Live or die, but don't poison everything... Well, death's been herefor a long time --it has a hell of a lotto do with helland suspicion of the eyeand the religious objectsand how I mourned themwhen they were made obsceneby my dwarf-heart's doodle. The chief ingredientis mutilation. And mud, day after day,mud like a ritual,and the baby on the platter,cooked but still human,cooked also with little maggots,sewn onto it maybe by somebody's mother,the damn bitch!Even so,I kept right on going on,a sort of human statement,lugging myself as if I were a sawed-off bodyin the trunk, the steamer trunk. This became perjury of the soul. It became an outright lieand even though I dressed the bodyit was still naked, still killed. It was caughtin the first place at birth,like a fish. But I play it, dressed it up,dressed it up like somebody's doll. Is life something you play?And all the time wanting to get rid of it?And further, everyone yelling at youto shut up. And no wonder!People don't like to be toldthat you're sickand then be forcedto watchyoucomedown with the hammer. Today life opened inside me like an eggand there insideafter considerable digging I found the answer. What a bargain!There was the sun,her yolk moving feverishly,tumbling her prize --and you realize she does this daily!I'd known she was a purifierbut I hadn't thoughtshe was solid,hadn't known she was an answer. God! It's a dream,lovers sprouting in the yardlike celery stalksand better,a husband straight as a redwood,two daughters, two sea urchings,picking roses off my hackles. If I'm on fire they dance around itand cook marshmallows. And if I'm icethey simply skate on mein little ballet costumes. Here,all along,thinking I was a killer,anointing myself dailywith my little poisons. But no. I'm an empress. I wear an apron. My typewriter writes. It didn't break the way it warned. Even crazy, I'm as niceas a chocolate bar. Even with the witches' gymnasticsthey trust my incalculable city,my corruptible bed. O dearest three,I make a soft reply. The witch comes onand you paint her pink. I come with kisses in my hoodand the sun, the smart one,rolling in my arms. So I say Liveand turn my shadow three times roundto feed our puppies as they come,the eight Dalmatians we didn't drown,despite the warnings: The abort! The destroy!Despite the pails of water that waited,to drown them, to pull them down like stones,they came, each one headfirst, blowing bubbles the color of cataract-blueand fumbling for the tiny tits. Just last week, eight Dalmatians,3/4 of a lb., lined up like cord woodeachlike abirch tree. I promise to love more if they come,because in spite of crueltyand the stuffed railroad cars for the ovens,I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann. The poison just didn't take. So I won't hang around in my hospital shift,repeating The Black Mass and all of it. I say Live, Live because of the sun,the dream, the excitable gift."

"Only my books anoint me, and a few friends, those who reach into my veins."

"I am God, la de dah."

"I am stuffing your mouth with yourpromises and watching you vomit them out upon my face."

"Watch out for intellect,because it knows so much it knows nothingand leaves you hanging upside down,mouthing knowledge as your heartfalls out of your mouth."