“December 6th” – Anne Sexton | L’Altrove

December 6th

A light rain, as tranquil as an apple, today…
mild and supple and fat and full-blown sweet
like the last February 2nd on Groundhog Day.
He wouldn’t come out and we lay odds
that his Mickey Mouse nose would greet
us, that his coma wasn’t part of the gods.

We thought he’d show at the Candlemass,
show his Chippewa shadow at eleven a.m.
We thought that coldblooded thing would pass
like a priest with his mouthful of beets
for the emerging mystic and the stratagem
that his wide awake show meets.