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Alessandra Bava

Love Letter to Anne Sexton #1

Your dreamlike, haunting figure comes
winding my way at nighttime. You
hold a flickering candle, as the
Priestess of No Hope seeking her lost
faith, stitching red words in the air.

I follow your glowworm trail. You drag
yourself from room to room – a cap
of thistle and moths pulled over your
eyes. You have long been blind,
but I cannot elude the crisp azure

glint sparkling in your cavities.
You wear a bridal dress swathed
around your bony arms. I lift your
long wake, carry it in my hands as
a talisman, a parched manuscript –

I don’t want you to stumble anymore.
You turn around, shake your dark
mane, storm down on me like
the avenging angel and cry:
“Love – I’ve come to reclaim you!”


Love Letter to Anne Sexton #9

“Happy Birthday, Anne,” I say.
You shake your head, your dark
hair falls all across your body as
in that painting of Magdalene, the
repentant.

“Did you bring me flowers?” you
ask. I hand you a red rose covered
in rain, each thorn a lesson of
piercing love. More arrows cover
your body.

The sky is all dappled with desire.
Your wounded nakedness stirs the
stars. Our horoscopes tell how
fiercely we love – planets don’t lie.
I run my

tongue over your lips to seize new
words. My throat has an upholstered
constellation of slings for weapons
now. The gift is all
mine.


Love Letter to Anne Sexton #14

“Every piece of me is dying,” you say.
I cry out: “Resuscitate!”
You look at me with glossy eyes,
I watch words float in that azureness,
I study ways of salvaging them.
You answer as Cleodegaria in Cuarón’s
Roma: “I can’t. I’m dead.”
I lie close to you, my head against yours.
These death games tire me.
The birds in our heads flutter against
the cage of our hopes.
I feel splenic today. I’ll take a rifle,
riddle my hopes one by one, then flay
them and wear their skins like a crown.


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