Cairo, the 14th August, 2009

"Kiss"

"My mouth blooms like a cut.

I've been wronged all year,

tedious nights, nothing but rough elbows

in the delicate boxes of Kleenex calling cry baby cry baby, you fool!

Before today my body was useless.

Now it's tearing at its square corners.

It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot and see - Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.

Zing! A resurrection!

Once it was a boat, quite wooden

and with no business,

no salt water under it

and in need of some paint.

It was no more

than a group of boards.

But you hoisted her, rigged her.

She's been elected.

My nerves are turned on.

I hear them like musical instruments.

Where there was silence the drums,

the strings are incurably playing.

You did this.

Pure genius at work.

Darling, the composer has stepped

into fire."

Anne Sexton

"