Music Swims Back To Me Poem by Anne Sexton

Music Swims Back To Me

Rating: 3.3


Wait Mister. Which way is home?
They turned the light out
and the dark is moving in the corner.
There are no sign posts in this room,
four ladies, over eighty,
in diapers every one of them.
La la la, Oh music swims back to me
and I can feel the tune they played
the night they left me
in this private institution on a hill.

Imagine it. A radio playing
and everyone here was crazy.
I liked it and danced in a circle.
Music pours over the sense
and in a funny way
music sees more than I.
I mean it remembers better;
remembers the first night here.
It was the strangled cold of November;
even the stars were strapped in the sky
and that moon too bright
forking through the bars to stick me
with a singing in the head.
I have forgotten all the rest.

They lock me in this chair at eight a.m.
and there are no signs to tell the way,
just the radio beating to itself
and the song that remembers
more than I. Oh, la la la,
this music swims back to me.
The night I came I danced a circle
and was not afraid.
Mister?

Music Swims Back To Me
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Joyce Yifith 01 March 2012

Ahaha! Sexton rocks!

7 1 Reply
Samantha Wallace 02 March 2012

Really moving poem with great imagery. Very descriptive emotionally. Great poem!

6 1 Reply
Brian Jani 19 June 2014

Music sees more than i, thats the best phrase for me

3 0 Reply
charvi 03 February 2020

this poem swum back to me...read it now, almost ten years to the day i read it first, and it is still so brilliant.

1 0 Reply
Castellenas John 22 March 2019

Dear Anne, a legend and a great poet.

1 0 Reply
M Asim Nehal 11 July 2016

The magic of music nicely described...

6 0 Reply
Alisha Castle 07 January 2016

Good described poetry........

6 0 Reply

Fantastic expression of human woes in an adverse situation and where radio music only soothing the mind.

5 0 Reply
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Anne Sexton

Anne Sexton

Newton, Massachusetts
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