Anne Sexton

The Hangman

Reasonable, reasonable, reasonable...we walked through

ten different homes, they always call them homes,

to find one ward where they like the babies who

looks like you. Each time, the eyes that no one owns

watched us intently, these visitors from the street

that moves outside. They watched, but did not know

about time, there in the house where babies never grow.

My boy, though innocent and mild

your brain is obsolete.

Those six times that you almost died

the newest medicine and the family fuss

pulled you back again. Supplied

with air, against my guilty wish,

your clogged pipes cried

like Lazarus.

At first your mother said...why me! why me!

But she got over that. Now she enjoys

her dull daily care and her hectic bravery.

You do not love anyone. She is not growing a boy;

she is enlarging a stone to wear around her neck.

Some nights in our bed her mouth snores at me coldly

or when she turns, her kisses walking out of the sea,

I think of the bad stories,

the monster and the wreck.

I think of that Scandinavian tale

that tells of the king who killed nine

sons in turn. Slaughtered wholesale,

they had one life in common

as you have mine,

my son.