Anne Sexton

Mother and Daughter

Linda, you are leaving

your old body now,

It lies flat, an old butterfly,

all arm, all leg, all wing,

loose as an old dress.

I reach out toward it but

my fingers turn to cankers

and I am motherwarm and used,

just as your childhood is used.

Question you about this

and you hold up pearls.

Question you about this

and you pass by armies.

Question you about this -

you with your big clock going,

its hands wider than jackstraws -

and you'll sew up a continent.

Now that you are eighteen

I give you my booty, my spoils,

my Mother & Co. and my ailments.

Question you about this

and you'll not know the answer -

the muzzle at the oxygen,

the tubes, the pathways,

the war and the war's vomit.

Keep on, keep on, keep on,

carrying keepsakes to the boys,

carrying powders to the boys,

carrying, my Linda, blood to

the bloodletter.

Linda, you are leaving

your old body now.

You've picked my pocket clean

and you've racked up all my

poker chips and left me empty

and, as the river between us

narrows, you do calisthenics,

that womanly leggy semaphore.

Question you about this

and you will sew me a shroud

and hold up Monday's broiler

and thumb out the chicken gut.

Question you about this

and you will see my death

drooling at these gray lips

while you, my burglar, will eat

fruit and pass the time of day.