Yes I try to kill myself in small amounts, an innocuous occupation. Actually I’m hung up on it. - Anne Sexton

"أتحبني؟"

سألتُ سترته الزرقاء.
لا جواب.
كان الصمت ينهمر من دفاتره.
ثم سقط من لسانه
وجاء وجلس بيننا
وخنق حلقي
وذبح يقيني
مزّق السجائر في فمي.
تبادلنا كلمات عمياء
ولم أبك،
ولم أتوسّل،
تنفّست الظلمة في قلبي،
وذلك الهواء الذي كان جميلًا
تحول إلى فرن غاز.

أتحبني؟
يا للعبث!
أي سؤال هو هذا؟
أي صمت هو هذا؟
ولمَ أمكث هنا
محاولة تفسير صمته؟

"After Auschwitz"

Anger,
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,
each Nazi
took, at 8: 00 A.M., a baby
and sauteed him for breakfast
in his frying pan.

And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail.

Man is evil,
I say aloud.
Man is a flower
that should be burnt,
I say aloud.
Man
is a bird full of mud,
I say aloud.

And death looks on with a casual eye
and scratches his anus.

Man with his small pink toes,
with his miraculous fingers
is not a temple
but an outhouse,
I say aloud.
Let man never again raise his teacup.
Let man never again write a book.
Let man never again put on his shoe.
Let man never again raise his eyes,
on a soft July night.
Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.
I say those things aloud.

I beg the Lord not to hear.

"From "Her Kind"

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind."