I was tired of being a woman, <br />tired of the spoons and the post, <br />tired of my mouth and my breasts, <br />tired of the cosmetics and the silks. <br />There were still men who sat at my table, <br />circled around the bowl I offered up. <br />The bowl was filled with purple grapes <br />and the flies hovered in for the scent <br />and even my father came with his white bone. <br />But I was tired of the gender things. <br /> <br />Last night I had a dream <br />and I said to it... <br />'You are the answer. <br />You will outlive my husband and my father.' <br />In that dream there was a city made of chains <br />where Joan was put to death in man's clothes <br />and the nature of the angels went unexplained, <br />no two made in the same species, <br />one with a nose, one with an ear in its hand, <br />one chewing a star and recording its orbit, <br />each one like a poem obeying itself, <br />performing God's functions, <br />a people apart. <br /> <br />'You are the answer, ' <br />I said, and entered, <br />lying down on the gates of the city. <br />Then the chains were fastened around me <br />and I lost my common gender and my final aspect. <br />Adam was on the left of me <br />and Eve was on the right of me, <br />both thoroughly inconsistent with the world of reason. <br />We wove our arms together <br />and rode under the sun. <br />I was not a woman anymore, <br />not one thing or the other. <br /> <br />O daughters of Jerusalem, <br />the king has brought me into his chamber. <br />I am black and I am beautiful. <br />I've been opened and undressed. <br />I have no arms or legs. <br />I'm all one skin like a fish. <br />I'm no more a woman <br />than Christ was a man.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/consorting-with-angels/
