The beautiful feeling after writing a poem is on the whole better even than after sex, and that's saying a lot. - Anne Sexton

This one day her mother gave her
a basket of wine and cake
to take to her grandmother
because she was ill.
Wine and cake?
Where's the aspirin? The penicillin?
Where's the fruit juice?
Peter Rabbit got camomile tea.
But wine and cake it was.

The snow has quietness in it; no songs,
no smells, no shouts or traffic.
When I speak
my own voice shocks me.

We were fair game
but we have kept out of the cesspool.
We are strong.
We are the good ones.
Do not discover us
for we lie together all in green
like pond weeds.
Hold me, my young dear, hold me.