Anne Sexton - The Ambition Bird lyrics

So it has come to this insomnia at 3:15 A.M., the clock tolling its engine like a frog following a sundial yet having an electric seizure at the quarter hour. The business of words keeps me awake. I am drinking cocoa, that warm brown mama. I would like a simple life yet all night I am laying poems away in a long box. It is my immortality box, my lay-away plan, my coffin. All night dark wings flopping in my heart. Each an ambition bird. The bird wants to be dropped from a high place like Tallahatchie Bridge. He wants to light a kitchen match and immolate himself. He wants to fly into the hand of Michelangelo anc dome out painted on a ceiling. He wants to pierce the hornet's nest and come out with a long godhead. He wants to take bread and wine and bring forth a man happily floating in the Caribbean. He wants to be pressed out like a key so he can unlock the Magi. He wants to take leave among strangers pa**ing out bits of his heart like hors d'oeuvres. He wants to die changing his clothes and bolt for the sun like a diamond. He wants, I want. Dear God, wouldn't it be good enough to just drink cocoa? I must get a new bird and a new immortality box. There is folly enough inside this one.