Joe Antoshak
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The One-Legged Man by Anne Sexton

1/24/2016

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Once there was blood
as in a murder
but now there is nothing.

Once there was a shoe,
brown cordovan,
which I tied
and it did me well.

Now
I have given away my leg
to be brought up beside orphans.
I have planted my leg beside the drowned mole
with his fifth pink hand sewn onto his mouth.
I have shipped off my leg so that
it may sink slowly like grit into the Atlantic.
I have jettisoned my leg so that it may
fall out of the sky like immense lumber.
I have eaten my leg so that
it may be spit out like a fingernail.

Yet all along . . .
Yes, all along,
I keep thinking that what I need
to do is buy my leg back.
Surely it is for sale somewhere,
poor broken tool, poor ornament.
It might be in a store somewhere beside a lady's scarf.
I want to write it letters.
I want to feed it supper.
I want to carve a bowstring out of it.
I want to hold it at noon in my bed
and stroke it slowly like a perfect woman.

Lady, lady,
why have you left me?

I did not mean to frighten her.
I wanted only to watch her quietly
​as she worked.
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