I do have that bad habit, so female, of taking people at their word. - 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.

There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
Today God gives milk
and I have the pail

They could not listen.
They could not stop.
What they did was the death dance.
What they did would do them in.