Photo of Anne Sexton

Anne's legs were long, lean and tan,
the kind of legs, when crossed,
could tuck behind her stable knee -
around one leg like a coiled snake
or the thin bowed arm of a clingy child. 

It was almost as if she was born double-jointed
sitting there on a brick wall in a courtyard,
smoking a menthol Salem in a black and white
funky print, halter dress, now considered "vintage",
her wide, bare shoulders tan -
strong and sturdy as the width of a mission-style chair.
A tall glass of Sunday's mint julep sat in quiet condensation,
everything about Anne was cosmopolitan. 

Her fingers bent beautifully upwards as if she was in conversation
with someone out of reach, out of the photo frame.
Gold bangle bracelets adorned her right arm
and a gold watch on her left, to hide her
psychosomatic attempts at free will. 

How I wished she was my mother
with all of her poetic, righteous baggage -
the afternoon lovers, spurned friendships and husbands,
the guilt over her parents' tragic deaths. How we
have benefitted from her loss, hundreds of ways she found
herself stuck, backed up into a corner, until she found her own language
and could name it.  

Coupling

I listened to you retell it, the story of how we first met
to our new friends from our new church. I sat there in
silence with my hands under table, wrapping my dirty,
cloth napkin around and around a small fist. Your version
of events were tidy and clean when you said you knew
I was the woman you were destined to marry the moment
you saw me in your doorway - punctual as always -
asking for Harrison, my blind date, and your perpetually
late roommate. Our new friend, Allison, cocked her head
and cooed out a falsetto's squeal to her mute husband -
Isn't that romantic , she said. If she only knew our truth,
that you had no interest in wanting to marry me the day
I showed up in your messy doorway with empty chip bags
and t-shirts strewn across wood floors, that it had nothing
to do with coupling. I was ripe, hot, willing to please -
not yet the bitch you would later marry. I was naïve in a white,
strapless sundress and long hair still shower-damp, smelling
of mint and clover. I let you kiss me in your bedroom,
touch my bare breasts, hide me in your closet when Harrison 
rapped on your door asking about a girl.