1780: Eighteen Days Without You | Anne Sexton
"Eighteen Days Without You"
Anne Sexton
December 11th
Then I think of you in bed,
your tongue half chocolate, half ocean,
of the houses that you swing into,
of the steel wool hair on your head,
of your persistent hands and then
how we gnaw at the barrier because we are two.
How you come and take my blood cup
and link me together and take my brine.
We are bare. We are stripped to the bone
and we swim in tandem and go up and up
the river, the identical river called Mine
and we enter together. No one’s alone.
I call her up sometimes, long distance now./And she still knows my voice, but I can hear,/Beyond the music of her phonograph,/The laughter
Anne Sexton
December 11th
Then I think of you in bed,
your tongue half chocolate, half ocean,
of the houses that you swing into,
of the steel wool hair on your head,
of your persistent hands and then
how we gnaw at the barrier because we are two.
How you come and take my blood cup
and link me together and take my brine.
We are bare. We are stripped to the bone
and we swim in tandem and go up and up
the river, the identical river called Mine
and we enter together. No one’s alone.
I call her up sometimes, long distance now./And she still knows my voice, but I can hear,/Beyond the music of her phonograph,/The laughter