The snow has quietness in it; no songs, no smells, no shouts or traffic. When I speak my own voice shocks me.
Anne SextonAnd tonight our skin, our bones, that have survived our fathers, will meet, delicate in the hold, fastened together in an intricate lock. Then one of us will shout, "My need is more desperate!" and I will eat you slowly with kisses even though the killer in you has gotten out.
Anne SextonIt was as if a morning-glory had bloomed in her throat, and all that blue and small pollen ate into my heart, violent and religious
Anne SextonDeath, I need my little addiction to you. I need that tiny voice who, even as I rise from the sea, all woman, all there, says kill me, kill me.
Anne Sexton[I] have fantasies of killing myself and thus being the powerful one not the powerless one.
Anne SextonYesterday I did not want to be borrowed but this is the typewriter that sits before me and love is where yesterday is at.
Anne SextonThose moments before a poem comes, when the heightened awareness comes over you, and you realize a poem is buried there somewhere, you prepare yourself. I run around, you know, kind of skipping around the house, marvelous elation. It’s as though I could fly.
Anne SextonDon’t worry if they say you’re crazy. They said that about me and yet I was saner than all of them. I knew. No matter. You know. Insane or sane, you know. It’s a good thing to know - no matter what they call it.
Anne SextonWe talked death with burned-up intensity, both of us drawn to it like moths to an electric light bulb. Sucking on it!
Anne SextonThe summer has seized you, as when, last month in Amalfi, I saw lemons as large as your desk-side globe-that miniature map of the world-and I could mention, too, the market stalls of mushrooms and garlic bugs all engorged. Or I even think of the orchard next door, where the berries are done and the apples are beginning to swell. And once, with our first backyard,I remember I planted an acre of yellow beans we couldn't eat.
Anne Sexton