I am alive at night. I am dead in the morning, an old vessel who used up her oil, bleak and pale boned. No miracle. No dazzle.
I'm out of repair but you are tall in your battle dress and I must arrange for your journey. I was always a virgin, old and pitted. Before the world was, I was.
I have been oranging and fat, carrot colored, gaped at, allowing my cracked o's to drop on the sea near Venice and Mombasa. Over Maine I have rested. I have fallen like a jet into the Pacific. I have committed perjury over Japan. I have dangled my pendulum, my fat bag, my gold, gold blinkedy light over you all.
So if you must inquire, do so. After all I am not artificial. I looked long upon you, love-bellied and empty, flipping my endless display for you, you my cold, cold coverall man.
You need only request and I will grant it. It is virtually guaranteed that you will walk into me like a barracks. So come cruising, come cruising, you of the blast off, you of the bastion, you of the scheme. I will shut my fat eye down, headquarters of an area, house of a dream.
I have been oranging and fat, carrot colored, gaped at, allowing my cracked o's to drop on the sea near Venice and Mombasa. Over Maine I have rested. I have fallen like a jet into the Pacific. I have committed perjury over Japan. I have dangled my pendulum, my fat bag, my gold, gold blinkedy light over you all.
So if you must inquire, do so. After all I am not artificial. I looked long upon you, love-bellied and empty, flipping my endless display for you, you my cold, cold coverall man.
You need only request and I will grant it. It is virtually guaranteed that you will walk into me like a barracks. So come cruising, come cruising, you of the blast off, you of the bastion, you of the scheme. I will shut my fat eye down, headquarters of an area, house of a dream.
Anne Sexton - The Complete Poems