Book Sale
Here is a poem I wrote recently, after buying "Anne Sexton, The Complete Poems" at a book sale. Click the play button to hear me reading Book Sale at the seventh annual Poets on the Porch, July 11, 2009, in Norway, Maine.
For fifty cents
I picked up,
in a single volume,
every poem you ever published.
Many of these --
I learn from the introduction --
you worked and reworked,
struggling through dozens of drafts.
I see you there
alone at your desk;
alone, curled up in a chair;
alone in bed;
alone at the kitchen table;
writing,
crossing out,
writing.
I am Aladdin
standing before your cave,
receiving your treasure
for little more
than a muttered phrase, overheard.
That I should receive so much
for so little
makes me ashamed.
I should have been charged
an arm
or an eye
or my very heart.
Permalink for "Book Sale" Posted 13 Jul 2009