Where I Live in This Honorable House of the Laurel Tree

by Anne Sexton

from Gods and Mortals: Modern Poems on Classical Myths, edited by Nina Kossman. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. Pages 39-40.

I live in my wooden legs and O 

my green green hands. 

Too late 

to wish that I had not run from you, Apollo, 

blood moves still in my bark bound veins, 

I, who ran nymph foot to root in flight, 

have only this late desire to arm the 

trees I lie within. The measure that I have lost 

silks my pulse. Each century, the trickeries 

of need pain me everywhere. 

Frost taps my skin and I stay glossed 

in honor, for you are gone in time. The air 

rings for you, for that astonishing rite 

of my breathing tent undone with your light. 

I only know how this untimely lust has tossed 

flesh at the wind forever and moved my fears 

toward the intimate Rome of the myth we crossed. 

I am a fist of my unease 

as I spill toward the stars in the empty years. 

I build the air with the crown of honor; it keys 

me out of time and luckless appetite. 

You gave me honor too soon, Apollo. 

There is no one left who understands 

how I wait 

here in my wooden legs and O 

my green green hands.