ROWING WITH ANNE SEXTON

How right you are, Anne. But you were always
right - even when your worst critics tried to
silence your awful truth.

So I've flipped the pages of my dusty
calendar, and have seen May for the first
time this year:

An enormous field of lazy lavender flowers. How
I long to sleep in such a rich and natural bed!
Instead, I bought a new 100 watt bulb,

and lit up my dark cave in the sky. Now I am wide
awake. I see too much dust and death, and a
rare living sunflower or two. I place my frozen

TV dinner in the microwave, and read your holy
words while I wait for that faint little bell to tell
me my toxic meal is done.

I now have light, Anne. But there is no life
saving soup. There's no home or heart when
depression has robbed its victim of

everything that matters most: Family, friends, joy,
those silly little bruised flowers on the bank
calendar page. So I read your poems, and wait for the

rowing to come. I know it might never happen: That awful
rowing toward God. But you came so very close, Anne.
That's the tragedy for people like us:

We came so fucking close.

Poem © 2014 by Dylan Mitchell