Forest Hills Cemetery; Jamaica Plains, Mass.
Thirty-six years ago today
Anne Sexton parked her automobile
in her garage.
She shut the garage's door.
She went into the house.
Nevermind that the day
was warm -- October-pretty,
foliage-filled,
sunny, mild, perfect --
she donned
an old fur coat.
It had belonged
to her mother.
She returned to the car.
The engine was running.
Her next ride
was in a hearse.
Left behind:
years of tears,
marvelous verse.
Ringing the Bells
-- by Anne Sexton
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| And this is the way they ring
the bells in Bedlam
and this is the bell-lady
who comes each Tuesday morning
to give us a music lesson
and because the attendants make you go
and because we mind by instinct,
like bees caught in the wrong hive,
we are the circle of crazy ladies
who sit in the lounge of the mental house
and smile at the smiling woman
who passes us each a bell,
who points at my hand
that holds my bell, E flat,
and this is the gray dress next to me
who grumbles as if it were special
to be old, to be old,
and this is the small hunched squirrel girl
on the other side of me
who picks at the hairs over her lip,
who picks at the hairs over her lip all day,
and this is how the bells really sound,
as untroubled and clean
as a workable kitchen,
and this is always my bell responding
to my hand that responds to the lady
who points at me, E flat;
and although we are not better for it,
they tell you to go. And you do. |
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