Over stone walls and barns, <br />miles from the black-eyed Susans, <br />over circus tents and moon rockets <br />you are going, going. <br />You who have inhabited me <br />in the deepest and most broken place, <br />are going, going. <br />An old woman calls up to you <br />from her deathbed deep in sores, <br />asking, 'What do you keep of her?' <br />She is the crone in the fables. <br />She is the fool at the supper <br />and you, sir, are the traveler. <br />Although you are in a hurry <br />you stop to open a small basket <br />and under layers of petticoats <br />you show her the tiger-striped eyes <br />that you have lately plucked, <br />you show her specialty, the lips, <br />those two small bundles, <br />you show her the two hands <br />that grip her fiercely, <br />one being mine, one being yours. <br />Torn right off at the wrist bone <br />when you started in your <br />impossible going, gone. <br />Then you place the basket <br />in the old woman's hollow lap <br />and as a last act she fondles <br />these artifacts like a child's head <br />and murmurs, 'Precious. Precious.' <br />And you are glad you have given <br />them to this one for she too <br />is making a trip.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/going-gone/
