Status Updates From Selected Poems of Anne Sexton

"but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside of me,
the gnawing pestilential rat."

"I have come back
but disorder is not what it was.
I have lost the trick of it!
The innocence of it!
(...)
I have come back,
recommitted,
fastened to the wall like a bathroom plunger,
held like a prisoner
who was so poor
he fell in love with jail."

darling, bring with this an hour of undulations, for this is the music for which I was born

the story of his life
is the story of mine
I have one glass eye
my nerves push against its panted surface
but the other one
waiting for judgement
continues to see…