for my friend Ruth, who urges me to make an appointment for the Sacrament of Confesson <br /> <br />Concerning your letter in which you ask <br />me to call a priest and in which you ask <br />me to wear The Cross that you enclose; <br />your own cross, <br />your dog-bitten cross, <br />no larger than a thumb, <br />small and wooden, no thorns, this rose - <br /> <br />I pray to its shadow, <br />that gray place <br />where it lies on your letter… deep, deep. <br />I detest my sins and I try to believe <br />in The Cross. I touch its tender hips, its dark jawed face, <br />its solid neck, its brown sleep. <br /> <br />True. There is <br />a beautiful Jesus. <br />He is frozen to his bones like a chunk of beef. <br />How desperately he wanted to pull his arms in! <br />How desperately I touch his vertical and horizontal axes! <br />But I can't. Need is not quite belief. <br /> <br />All morning long <br />I have worn <br />your cross, hung with package string around my throat. <br />It tapped me lightly as a child's heart might, <br />tapping secondhand, softly waiting to be born. <br />Ruth, I cherish the letter you wrote. <br /> <br />My friend, my friend, I was born <br />doing reference work in sin, and born <br />confessing it. This is what poems are: <br />with mercy <br />for the greedy, <br />they are the tongue's wrangle, <br />the world's pottage, the rat's star.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/with-mercy-for-the-greedy/
