There was an unwanted child. <br />Aborted by three modern methods <br />she hung on to the womb, <br />hooked onto I <br />building her house into it <br />and it was to no avail, <br />to black her out. <br /> <br />At her birth <br />she did not cry, <br />spanked indeed, <br />but did not yell- <br />instead snow fell out of her mouth. <br /> <br />As she grew, year by year, <br />her hair turned like a rose in a vase, <br />and bled down her face. <br />Rocks were placed on her to keep <br />the growing silent, <br />and though they bruised, <br />they did not kill, <br />though kill was tangled into her beginning. <br /> <br />They locked her in a football <br />but she merely curled up <br />and pretended it was a warm doll's house. <br />They pushed insects in to bite her off <br />and she let them crawl into her eyes <br />pretending they were a puppet show. <br /> <br />Later, later, <br />grown fully, as they say, <br />they gave her a ring, <br />and she wore it like a root <br />and said to herself, <br />'To be not loved is the human condition,' <br />and lay like a stature in her bed. <br /> <br />Then once, <br />by terrible chance, <br />love took her in his big boat <br />and she shoveled the ocean <br />in a scalding joy. <br /> <br />Then, <br />slowly, <br />love seeped away, <br />the boat turned into paper <br />and she knew her fate, <br />at last. <br />Turn where you belong, <br />into a deaf mute <br />that metal house, <br />let him drill you into no one.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/end-middle-beginning/
