True. All too true. I have never been at home in <br />life. All my decay has taken place upon a child. <br />Henderson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow <br /> <br />When I lie down to love, <br />old dwarf heart shakes her head. <br />Like an imbecile she was bom old., <br />Her eyes wobble as thirty-one thick folds <br />of skin open to glare at me on my flickering bed. <br />She knows the decay we're made of. <br /> <br />When hurt she is abrupt. <br />Now she is solid, like fat, <br />breathing in loops like a green hen <br />in the dust. But if I dream of loving, then <br />my dreams are of snarling strangers. She dreams that… <br />strange, strange, and corrupt. <br /> <br />Good God, the things she knows! <br />And worse, the sores she holds <br />in her hands, gathered in like a nest <br />from an abandoned field. At her best <br />she is all red muscle, humming in and out, cajoled <br />by time. Where I go, she goes. <br /> <br />Oh now I lay me down to love, <br />how awkwardly her arms undo, <br />bow patiently I untangle her wrists <br />like knots. Old ornament, old naked fist, <br />even if I put on seventy coats I could not cover you… <br />mother, father, I'm made of.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/old-dwarf-heart/
