Anne Sexton

The Witch's Life

When I was a child

there was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch.

All day she peered from her second story

window

from behind the wrinkled curtains

and sometimes she would open the window

and yell: Get out of my life!

She had hair like kelp

and a voice like a boulder.

I think of her sometimes now

and wonder if I am becoming her.

My shoes turn up like a jester's.

Clumps of my hair, as I write this,

curl up individually like toes.

I am shoveling the children out,

scoop after scoop.

Only my books anoint me,

and a few friends,

those who reach into my veins.

Maybe I am becoming a hermit,

opening the door for only

a few special animals?

Maybe my skull is too crowded

and it has no opening through which

to feed it soup?

Maybe I have plugged up my sockets

to keep the gods in?

Maybe, although my heart

is a kitten of butter,

I am blowing it up like a zeppelin.

Yes. It is the witch's life,

climbing the primordial climb,

a dream within a dream,

then sitting here

holding a basket of fire.