Love Poem for Anne Sexton
Daryl Sznyter
I, too, have been asked why I’m always grieving,
have been told to shed the red lipstick and haltered
dresses, to stop being so fucking weird around dinner
guests. I fell in love with you, Anne, one February
more than a decade ago. My own poems began
as prayers for your wellness. Like you, I’ve always felt
far from God, but if I believe in anything, I believe
in wellness. I take my kill-me pills like a good girl,
drawing strength from you when they make me sick
and flatten my voice and my sex and my once-liberated
eyes. Even my womanness is a half-thing, Anne,
as you well know what they say about pills and stillbirths,
pills and defects, pills and hormones, and poisoned breast milk.
When I lapse into those trances we share, I, too, derive joy
from suicide fantasies with household objects. The use
of tablecloth as noose or sink as river are pornographies
to me on my most airless days. It is my love of you, Anne,
that keeps me prisoner aboveground. I want to get better
to make you proud in the way a mother celebrates her
daughter’s birthday each year, awestruck over and over
that something so vicious came from her soft belly.
