First Words

after Anne Sexton, “The Poet of Ignorance,” (Paris Review, Winter 1974.)

 

Perhaps the sun moves in an arc across the sky,

I do not know.

Perhaps the lake is glad when I arrive

with my dog on its sand-frozen shore,

I do not know.

Perhaps the cardinal sings ‘with you, with you,’

outside my bedroom window,

I do not know.

 

Perhaps I am someone else’s dream.

If that’s the case, I wish they would conjure

a happier version of me

but I suspect that happiness is not my destiny.

Here is my problem:

 

Inside me there is an inconsolable child

who will not uncross her arms

or soften her scowl to satisfy the pleading adult

who is also in me, exasperated as hell.

We argue all day long. She throws fits, spits curses.

I ask her, the way my mother asked me,

“What in the blazes is wrong with you?”

 

Some days we call a truce while she eats triangles

of peanut butter & jam leaving red smears

on the milk glass before hurling it to the floor.

 

We’ve been to therapy.

We’ve done ayahuasca.

We swim, take walks, watch tv, sleep fitfully.

 

With the sharp point of a compass she carves her name

deep into the varnished spruce of my cello.

“I did it,” she says, defiant. At first I cannot speak.

Then: “When did you learn to write?”