I live in my wooden legs and O <br />my green green hands. <br />Too late <br />to wish I had not run from you, Apollo, <br />blood moves still in my bark bound veins. <br />I, who ran nymph foot to foot in flight, <br />have only this late desire to arm the trees <br />I lie within. The measure that I have lost <br />silks my pulse. Each century the trickeries <br />of need pain me everywhere. <br />Frost taps my skin and I stay glossed <br />in honor for you are gone in time. The air <br />rings for you, for that astonishing rite <br />of my breathing tent undone within your light. <br />I only know how untimely lust has tossed <br />flesh at the wind forever and moved my fears <br />toward the intimate Rome of myth we crossed. <br />I am a fist of my unease <br />as I spill toward the stars in the empty years. <br />I build the air with the crown of honor; it keys <br />my out of time and luckless appetite. <br />You gave me honor too soon, Apollo. <br />There is no one left who understands <br />how I wait <br />here in my wooden legs and O <br />my green green hands.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/where-i-live-in-this-honorable-house-of-the-laurel-tree/
