Oh, love, why do we argue like this?
I am tired of all your pious talk.
Also, I am tired of all the dead.
They refuse to listen,
so leave them alone.
Take your foot out of the graveyard,
they are busy being dead.
Everyone was always to blame:
the last empty fifth of booze,
the rusty nails and chicken feathers
that stuck in the mud on the back doorstep,
the worms that lived under the cat's ear
and the thin-lipped preacher
who refused to call
except once on a flea-ridden day
when he came scuffing in through the yard
looking for a scapegoat.
I hid in the kitchen under the ragbag.
I refuse to remember the dead.
And the dead are bored with the whole thing.
But you -- you go ahead,
go on, go on back down
into the graveyard,
lie down where you think their faces are;
talk back to your old bad dreams.
The first time I was introduced to Anne Sexton was through a girlfriend. We were discussing Van Gogh’s famous painting Starry Night, and she said “Oh starry night! This is how I want to die.” I thought Christ that’s a bit morbid, and she laughed explaining that it was an Anne Sexton poem. To this day that infernal ear-worm, “Oh starry night! This is how I want to die,” rings in my ears each time I look at that painting of Van Gogh’s and when Sexton’s name is mentioned.
Sexton was such a complicated lady, but in my eyes a superior poet to Plath. Wish she'd have added some prose to the world. "Oh love, why do we argue like this?" I've said the same thing in a half dozen relationships ;)
Seems like mortality's on your mind, Erik.