Last Night, Nin Andrews

Mark Terry, Raku Bottle

 

Last Night

 

after Ann Sexton, The Starry Night

 

It is true
she did not exist
except when you slipped beneath the ocean
and, like the drowning,
tried to cling to the sky,
to the eleven stars you counted
(you always counted things, didn’t you?)
to the limbs of wet black trees
and the bulging, yellow moon,
and, when crying out, you begged her,
Please, please, oh please.
Let me die. Let me die this once.

________________
Nin Andrews

 

Review by Debby Bacharach

I love when a poem gives me layers. Andrews lets us know her poem is based on Sexton, which is based on Van Gogh and has a reference to the Bible—those eleven stars in Joseph’s dream. I reacquainted myself with all these references to feel them reverberate through Last Night.

 

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