In November, thirty years old.
're still small, you have only three years.
We look at the yellow leaves go queer,
swirl in the rain in winter,
fall and crouched. And I remember
the past three autumns you did not here.
They said I would have never recovered.
I tell you what you never really know:
guesswork medical
explaining the brain will never be real
as these leaves torn down.
I, who have twice tried to kill myself,
I gave you a nickname
just arrived in the months of whining;
then a fever thee gasping throat
and I moved like a pantomime
around your little head.
bad angels have told me. The fault,
said, was mine. They were spies
as witches in the head green to ruin
like a broken faucet;
as if he had ruined his stomach flooded and submerged the cradle,
an old debt that I had to take.
Death was easier than I thought.
The day I gave you life returned safely
I let the witches away my guilty soul.
I pretended to be dead
until white men knackered me from the poison,
without arms and put me from washed
the rigamarole of talking boxes and electric beds.
I laughed to see me put in irons in that hotel.
Today the yellow leaves
are exhausted. I wonder where they go.
I tell you today that he believed in himself, or surrendered.
Today, my little girl, Joy,
love your being where she now lives.
There is no special God to reach, or if there is,
then why have I done to grow elsewhere.
You do not recognize my voice
when I came home to find you.
All the superlatives
of Christmas trees and mistletoe future
not help you know the holidays that you lost.
In the time did not love myself
I came to visit you on the sidewalks shoveled,
kept me for a glove.
After this was again the snow.
2.
They sent me letters with your news
cucivo moccasins and I'd never used.
When I began to put up with me
went to be with his mother. Too late,
too late, "said the witch, to be with his mother.
not I left.
But I am a portrait done.
partial return of the asylum in
came to my mother's house in Gloucester.
And here's how I came to clipping,
and that's how I came to losing it.
My mother said, the suicide I can not give forgiveness.
You never could.
But she made me a portrait.
I lived as a guest angry,
partially mended, baby exorbitant.
I remember that my mother did her best.
He took me to Boston for me to change the cut.
Smile like your mother, "said the capocciante.
It seemed interesting.
But I am a portrait done.
There was a church where I grew up,
we were there in white cabinets inchiavati
as the chorus of sailors, or Puritans, regimented.
My father passed and saucer for alms.
They said the witches, too late to be forgiven.
And I was not really forgiven.
But a portrait of me from that.
3.
That summer irrigation revenues arched
coastal rain on the grass.
while the corroded by salt meadow
sweetened again.
to spend time mowing grass
the morning and I did do a portrait,
staring at the smile in formalities.
I've sent the little drawing of a rabbit,
and a postcard with the number one Motif
as if it were normal
be a mother and be gone.
They hung the portrait in the cold light
the north side, which suits me well,
to make me feel good.
Only my mother fell ill.
I turned away, as if death contagious
as if death is reflected,
as if my dying had eroded.
In August you were two, but it was certainly the calculation of days.
On September looked at me in the face
and told me that I had attacked the cancer.
The rolling hills cut them
and I still did not answer.
4.
That winter she came
partial return
the sterile suite
doctors, nauseating
cruise X-ray
arithmetic cells gone wild.
Partial intervention
arm fat, poor prognosis,
I heard them say.
During the storms marine
she had to do the portrait.
cave mirror,
hanging on the south side;
a couple of smiles, a copy of her features.
And you like me unknown
my face, you wore it.
After all, you were mine.
I wintered in Boston,
married without children,
anything sweet share,
with witches by side.
I lost your childhood,
another attempted suicide,
just the second hotel of the seals.
made me an April Fool.
We laughed together, it was good.
5.
For the last time dismissed me from
May 1;
degree in mental cases,
with the consent of the analyst,
finished a book of verse,
the typewriter and the stock exchanges.
That summer I learned to forgive life
in my seven rooms,
went on the swan boats, the market,
answer the phone,
like a good wife offered him a drink,
I love between petticoats and August tan.
And you were coming every weekend. No, chin.
You came rarely. I pretended that you were there
butterfly girl, slut
cheek jelly,
three years of disobedience,
beautiful but unknown.
And I had to learn
because I wanted to die rather than love,
because I was hurt your innocence,
accumulation and why the blame
as a young intern
reveals the symptoms and some evidence.
That October day we went to Gloucester
the red hills reminded me
the fur of red fox torn
where I played as a child,
still like a bear, a tent,
a great cave laughing, red fur fox.
We passed the nursery for fish,
the shack where they sell the bait,
Pigeon Cove, Yacht Club,
Squall Hill, to the house waiting
still, the beach house.
And two portraits are hung on opposite walls.
6.
the north side of my smile in its place is fixed
stands in the shadows my bony face.
posavo While there what I had dreamed
all of me in the eyes waiting
the young face, the area of \u200b\u200bthe smile,
trap for foxes.
the south side of his smile in place is fixed
withered withered cheeks as orchids;
my mocking mirror, my love ousted,
my first image. I peeps from the portrait
the head of death petrified
I had overcome.
The artist looked at the turn;
you smile in the framed canvases
before choosing the first roads to be separated.
The red fox fur was to be burned.
I rot on the wall
like Dorian Grey.
And this was a cave mirror,
a woman split that attaches
as if time had froze
- two ladies sat in umber -
You gave a kiss to her grandmother,
and she cried.
7.
I could not keep
except the weekend. Every time you came
clutching the little drawing of the rabbit
that I had sent. For the last time
unpack your suitcase. We touch without contact.
The first time you asked my name.
he will remain forever. Forget
that knocked clashing like puppets
hanging from wires. It was not love
reduced to the weekend.
you scrape your knee, you learn my name,
teetering on the sidewalk crying and calling.
call me mom and I still remember my mother,
than elsewhere on the outskirts of Boston, died.
I remember you called it Joy
to call you joy.
You came as a guest embarrassed
then, all wrapped wet wonder
heavy on my breast.
I needed you. I did not want a male,
only a girl, a baby mouse lactose,
always loved, always exuberant
the house itself. We called it Joy.
I, that I was never certain of being female,
I needed another life,
a ' other image to remember.
And this was my more serious fault;
you could not cure or lenirla.
I've done for me.
Anne Sexton
