Come back from the living

I wonder if the artist ever lives his life — he is so busy recreating it. Only as I write do I realize myself. I don't know what that does to life. ~Anne Sexton

Ann With An E
For Anne Sexton

Here are stories that probably never happened,
this right life in a wrong time. Hold the tears
of a dying sun and tell me how you do it. Can
anyone know how you savor the oblique hips
of islands, the moist lips of clouds, the failure
you feel before it all, that perfect beautiful failure?



I miswrote your name, you know. It's Ann with
an e, so I had to go back. Life is one refix after
another. I don't know what this does to life but
to break it open for good so that all that goodness
tumbles out. The moon knows enough to make
this obvious to some. Six decades in the books
and, somehow, I've not gotten any better at this.

But I haven't ended it yet. I haven't not thrived in
the many ways life tries to take you out of its story.
Some of my life happened; some, did not. I can't
tell you which from which, only that I am not Lazarus
come back from the living to tell you nothing you
don't already know and may yet remember you do.

Joseph Gallo
November 10, 2011