Anne Sexton

Come dicono i pompieri,
non prendete mai camere oltre
il quinto piano
negli hotel di New York:
ci sono scale che vanno piú su
ma nessuno ci salirebbe.
Come dice il "New York Times"... (continua)

Concerning your letter in which you ask
me to call a priest and in which you ask
me to wear The Cross that you enclose;
your own cross,
your dog-bitten cross,
no larger than a thumb,
small and wooden, no thorns, this rose... (continua)

Child, the current of your breath is six days long.
You lie, a small knuckle on my white bed;
lie, fisted like a snail, so small and strong
at my breast. Your lips are animals; you are fed
with love. At first hunger is not wrong.
The nurses nod their caps; you are shepherded
down starch halls with the other unnested throng... (continua)

I am thirty this November.
You are still small, in your fourth year.
We stand watching the yellow leaves go queer,
flapping in the winter rain.
Falling flat and washed. And I remember
mostly the three autumns you did not live here.
They said I'd never get you back again... (continua)

My faith
is a great weight
hung on a small wire,
as doth the spider
hang her baby on a thin web,
as doth the vine,
twiggy and wooden... (continua)