We are fishermen in a flat scene.

god, I love Anne Sexton. She is exquisite and brash and eloquent and crass and dotted.

"My friend, my friend, I was born
doing reference work in sin, and born
confessing it. This is what poems are:
with mercy
for the greedy,
they are the tongue's wrangle,
the world's pottage, the rat's star."

So matter-of-fact! So gentle in telling her truth! Anne Sexton, you are what poems should be: wrestling with perfection, coated in sin, scraping your elbows and knees until they are bloody and gritty with the collision between what should be and what is.

Reading Anne Sexton poetry out loud for two hours leaves one shaking, blood rushing throughout the entire surface of one's skin, cheeks rosy and alive with the icy heat of voyaging fingertips and baited breaths emerging from the muggy, dew-dripping lair of the spoken language:

"Oh starry starry night! This is how I want to die:
into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry."

Anne Sexton, you have come to pierce me at my hunger mark.

the contented calm of blustery days

It's raining--the outskirts of a hurricane, actually--and I rode/walked my bike to work today. Unfortunately, I wore pants that are quite thick and take a long time to dry, and so now I have paper towels lining my legs in order to provide at least less than one-tenth of a centimeter of respite from cold, clinging cloth. There's something delightfully cozy and hilarious about wrapping up in layers, hats, and gloves and then putting on a raincoat. It doesn't make any sense aesthetically as to why the raincoat is the last layer--it's shiny and thin and flimsy. My hat is wool and thick and sturdy. Yet the hood of the raincoat covers the hat. I love the illogic of it.