Anne Sexton - The Fury Of Beautiful Bones lyrics

Sing me a thrush, bone. Sing me a nest of cup and pestle. Sing me a sweetbread for an old grandfather. Sing me a foot and a doorknob, for you are my love. Oh sing, bone bag man, sing. Your head is what I remember that August you were in love with another woman but that didn't matter. I was the guy of your bones, your fingers long and nubby, your forehead a beacon, bare as marble and I worried you like an odor because you had not quite forgotten, bone bag man, garlic in the North End, the book you dedicated, naked as a fish, naked as someone drowning into his own mouth. I wonder, Mr. Bone man, what you're thinking of your fury now, gone sour as a sinking whale, crawling up the alphabet on her own bones. Am I in your ear still singing songs in the rain, me of the d**h rattle, me of the magnolias, me of the sawdust tavern at the city's edge. Women have lovely bones, arms, neck, thigh and I admire them also, but your bones supersede loveliness. They are the tough ones that get broken and reset. I just can't answer for you, only for your bones, round rulers, round nudgers, round poles, numb napkins, the sword of sugar. I feel the skull, Mr. Skeleton, living its own life in its own skin.