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Anne Sexton - The Red DanceAnne Sexton - The Red Dance
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There was a girl who danced in the city that night, that April 22nd, all along the Charles River. It was as if one hundred men were watching or do I mean the one hundred eyes of God? The yellow patches in the sycamores glowed like miniature flashlights. The shadows, the skin of them were ice cubes that flashed from the red dress to the roof. Mile by mile along the Charles she danced past the benches of lovers, past the dogs pissing on the benches. She had on a red, red dress and there was a small rain and she lifted her face to it and thought it part of the river. And cars and trucks went by on Memorial Drive. And the Harvard students in the brick hallowed houses studied Sappho in cement rooms. And this Sappho danced on the grass. and danced and danced and danced. It was a death dance. The Larz Anderson bridge wore its lights and many cars went by, and a few students strolling under their Coop umbrellas. And a black man who asked this Sappho the time, the time, as if her watch spoke. Words were turning into grease, and she said, "Why do you lie to me?" And the waters of the Charles were beautiful, sticking out in many colored tongues and this strange Sappho knew she would enter the lights and be lit by them and sink into them. And how the end would come - it had been foretold to her - she would aspirate swallowing a fish, going down with God`s first creature dancing all the way.
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