Love Couplets for Anne Sexton (Written by her red dress)

After Arthur Furst’s portrait of Anne Sexton (1974)

I watch your hands resting mid-flight, I wonder what
they might look like perched on the frame of my bed?

You speak words. I am making tiny earthquake discoveries
about you, but how much will you leave unsaid?

What would it be like to contract and squat on that innocuous
ring you furl and finger, sent sick or mad with motion?

Or I could morph into a cigarette, sublimate, pry in your
smoke and leave a small token?

If I gathered the stray hairs on your coat, might I spin them to make
yarn, then twist to make rope?

I could be the artful weaver unpicking shrouds and my fingers
gently bleeding hope?

I want to drown in your mirror, ride on the liver of your soul
then try on your red shoes.

I’d like to lotion your screams with my love, peel away the tissue
then kiss the bruise.

I want to make a fabric from you, hand stitch the warm swatches
design a quilt, spread it on my bed.

And had you bent your fugitive neck my love I may have had
enough to embroider your scent instead.

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Poem by Mona Arshi, commissioned by Poet in the City, University of Liverpool and Loughborough University as part of Poets in Vogue