Becoming Light by Erica Jong

two-suiter,
    & (with passports bluer than their eyes)
    pose as barons
    in Kitzbühel, or poets in Portofino,
    something in us sails
    off with them (dreaming of bacon-lettuce-
    and-tomato sandwiches).
    Oh, all the exiles of the twenties knew
    that America
    was discovered this way: desperate men,
    wearing nostalgia
    like a hangover, sailed out, sailed out
    in search of passports,
    eyes, an ancient kingdom, beyond the absurd
    suburbs of the heart.

Dear Anne Sexton, I
    On line at the supermarket
    waiting for the tally,
    the blue numerals
    tattooed
    on the white skins
    of paper,
    I read your open book
    of folly
    and take heart,
    poet of my heart.
    The poet as housewife!
    Keeper of steak & liver,
    keeper of keys, locks, razors,
    keeper of blood & apples,
    of breasts & angels,
    Jesus & beautiful women,
    keeper also of women
    who are not beautiful—
    you glide in from Cape Ann
    on your winged broomstick—
    the housewife’s Pegasus.
    You are sweeping the skies clear
    of celestial rubbish.
    You are placing a child there,
    a heart here…
    You are singing for your supper.
    Dearest wordmother & hunger-teacher,
    full professor of courage,
    dean of women
    in my school of books,
    thank you.
    I have checked out
    pounds of meat & cans of soup.
    I walk home laden,
    light with writing you.

Dear Anne Sexton, II
    My dearest Anne,
    I am living by a lake
    with a young man
    I met one week after you died.
    His beard is red,
    his eyes flicker like cat’s eyes,
    & the amazing plum of his tongue
    sweetens my brain.
    He is like nobody
    since I love him.
    His cock sinks deep
    in my heart.
    ♦
    I have owed you a letter
    for months.
    ♦
    I wanted to chide
    the manner of your death
    the way I might have once
    revised your poem.
    You are like nobody
    since I love you,
    & you are gone.
    ♦
    Can you believe
    your death gave birth to me?
    Live or die,
    you said insistently.
    You chose the second
    & the first chose me.
    I mourned you
    & I found him
    in one week.
    ♦
    Is love the sugar-coated poison
    that gets us in the end?
    We spoke of men
    as often as of poems.
    We tried to legislate away
    the need for love—
    that backseat fuck
    & death caressing you.
    ♦
    Why did you do it
    in your mother’s coat?
    (I know
    but also know
    I have to ask.)
    Our mothers get us hooked,
    then leave us cold,
    all full-grown orphans
    hungering after love.
    ♦
    You loved a man who spoke
    “like greeting cards.”
    “He fucks me well
    but I can’t talk to him.”
    We shared that awful need
    to talk in bed.
    Love wasn’t love
    if we could only speak
    in tongues.
    ♦
    & the intensity of unlove
    increased
    until the motor, the running motor
    could no longer power
    the driver,
    & you, with miles to go,
    would rather sleep.
    ♦
    Between the pills, the suicide pills
    & our giggly vodkas in the Algonquin…
    Between your round granny glasses
    & your eyes blue as glaciers…
    Between your stark mother-hunger
    & your mother courage,
    you knew there was only one poem
    we all were writing.
    ♦
    No competition.
    “The poem belongs to everyone
    & God.”
    I jumped out of your
    suicide car
    & into his arms.
    Your death was mine.
    I ate it
    & returned.
    ♦
    Now I sit by a lake
    writing to you.
    I love a man
    who makes my fingers ache.
    I type to you
    off somewhere in the clouds.
    I tap the table
    like a spiritualist.
    ♦
    Sex is a part of death;
    that much I know.
    Your voice was earth,
    your eyes were glacier-blue.
    Your slender torso
    & long-stemmed American legs
    drape across
    this huge blue western sky.
    ♦
    I want to tell you “Wait,
    don’t do it yet.”
    Love is the poison, Anne,
    but love eats death.

Dearest Man-in-the-Moon,
    ever since our lunch of cheese
    & moonjuice
    on the far side of the sun,
    I have walked the craters of New York,
    a trail of slime
    ribboning between my legs,
    a phosphorescent banner
    which is tied to you,
    a beam of moonlight
    focused on your navel,
    a silver chain
    from which my body dangles,
    & my whole torso chiming
    like sleighbells in a