“Rapunzel” by Anne Sexton
A woman
who loves a woman
is forever young.
The mentor
and the student
feed off each other.
Many a girl
had an old aunt
who locked her in the study
to keep the boys away.
They would play rummy
or lie on the couch
and touch and touch.
Old breast against young breast…
Let your dress fall down your shoulder,
come touch a copy of you
for I am at the mercy of rain,
for I have left the three Christs of Ypsilanti
for I have left the long naps of Ann Arbor
and the church spires have turned to stumps.
The sea bangs into my cloister
for the politicians are dying,
and dying so hold me, my young dear,
hold me…
“The Dream” by Aphra Behn—
All trembling in my arms Aminta lay,Defending of the bliss I strove to take;Raising my rapture by her kind delay,Her force so charming was and weak.The soft resistance did betray the grant,While I pressed on the heaven of my desires;Her rising breasts with nimbler motions pant;Her dying eyes assume new fires.Now to the height of languishment she grows,And still her looks new charms put on;Now the last mystery of Love she knows,We sigh, and kiss: I waked, and all was done.
‘Twas but a dream, yet by my heart I knew,Which still was panting, part of it was true:Oh how I strove the rest to have believed;Ashamed and angry to be undeceived!
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Red river, red river,
Slow flow heat is silence
No will is still as a river
Still. Will heat move
Only through the mocking-bird
Heard once? Still hills
Wait. Gates wait. Purple trees,
White trees, wait, wait,
Delay, decay. Living, living,
Never moving. Ever moving
Iron thoughts came with me
And go with me:
Red river, river, river.
