Love Poem: Sculpting Anne Sexton
Jason Johnson Avatar
Written by: Jason Johnson

Sculpting Anne Sexton

Your tongue forced like clothes pins
wetting cinnamon lips,
gnawing at the barrier of one another.

Sketching, Sketching,

Hands shaping you, catching you drawn paper
filed with the note no one left,
a skilled architect,
slowly tracing across your torso.

Dog- earring the pages of your book, inner knowledge;
pages written with pearl droplets of silk
incandescent from moon colored sweat.

Fusing pressed ribs together firm as tuning forks,
asthmatic breath paining the wind
rushing through your chest;
                               sobbing in, sobbing out.

Sheets twisting each other in quicksand
your brail fingers finding my spine
racing down my back like a fire pole.

A sculptor arching your neck, pausing
amethyst eyes impatient like pedestrian traffic
hurried to find nowhere

Stamping, Stamping.

My hand planted in the small of your back
a careful caretaker stripped to the bone,
keeping us pinned together carelessly
                                 inside out, upside down