I dance in circles holding <br />the moth of the marriage, <br />thin, sticky, fluttering <br />its skirts, its webs. <br />The moth oozing a tear, <br />or is it a drop of urine? <br />The moth, grinning like a pear, <br />or is it teeth <br />clamping the iron maiden shut? <br /> <br />The moth, <br />who is my mother, <br />who is my father, <br />who was my lover, <br />floats airily out of my hands <br />and I dance slower, <br />pulling off the fat diamond engagement ring, <br />pulling off the elopement wedding ring, <br />and holding them, clicking them <br />in thumb and forefinger, <br />the indent of twenty-five years, <br />like a tiny rip of a tiny earthquake. <br />Underneath the soil lies the violence, <br />the shift, the crack of continents, <br />the anger, <br />and above only a cut, <br />a half-inch space to stick a pencil in. <br /> <br />The finger is scared <br />but it keeps its long numb place. <br />And I keep dancing, <br />a sort of waltz, <br />clicking the two rings, <br />all of a life at its last cough, <br />as I swim through the air of the kitchen, <br />and the same radio plays its songs <br />and I make a small path through them <br />with my bare finger and my funny feet, <br />doing the undoing dance, <br />on April 14th, 1973, <br />letting my history rip itself off me <br />and stepping into <br />something unknown <br />and transparent, <br />but all ten fingers stretched outward, <br />flesh extended as metal <br />waiting for a magnet.<br /><br />Anne Sexton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-wedding-ring-dance/
