IN MY BEST ANNE SEXTON ACCENT
for the one who shouldn’t have

I dug through your shoulders

and found a love poem

you were going to throw away.

I keep it

with all your love letters

in a parrot’s cage that dangles from my ear.

I’m a ballerina tiptoeing across your boredom

in a tutu with no underwear on.

My best Anne Sexton accent

sends the caves searching

for their long lost echo

in a sea of yawning mermaids.

Drops by to visit your thoughts unannounced

like the uncle you can never forgive.

Can’t keep her eyes off keeping you.

Will wander into the arms of another sense

while grieving for your smell.

Makes the hissing sound of lovers

returning to each other on a holiday.

Doesn’t care where your sorrow comes from

as long as it goes somewhere.

Walks the beach at night when the moon is grounded.

Circles the Saturdays in you

hogs all the blankets of your skin

lets you swig on my style

till it creeps up on you like Irish car bombs.

My best Sexton accent

cruises down your post-party boulevard nerves

till something arrests,

is a homeless, hungry journey

into the shelter of your eyes.

Sleeps clutching your sneakers like a stuffed animal

and dreams of running in a world

that ran away with you.