For My Lover, Returning To His Wife
She is all there.
She was melted carefully down for you
and cast up from your childhood,
cast up from your one hundred favorite aggies.
She has always been there, my darling.
She is, in fact, exquisite.
Fireworks in the dull middle of February
and as real as a cast-iron pot.
Let's face it, I have been momentary.
A luxury. A bright red sloop in the harbor.
My hair rising like smoke from the car window.
Littleneck clams out of season.
She is more than that. She is your have to have,
has grown you your practical your tropical growth.
This is not an experiment. She is all harmony.
She sees to oars and oarlocks for the dinghy,
has placed wild flowers at the window at breakfast,
sat by the potter's wheel at midday,
set forth three children under the moon,
three cherubs drawn by Michelangelo,
done this with her legs spread out
in the terrible months in the chapel.
If you glance up, the children are there
like delicate balloons resting on the ceiling.
She has also carried each one down the hall
after supper, their heads privately bent,
two legs protesting, person to person
her face flushed with a song and their little sleep.
I give you back your heart.
I give you permission—
for the fuse inside her, throbbing
angrily in the dirt, for the bitch in her
and the burying of her wound—
for the burying of her small red wound alive—
for the pale flickering flare under her ribs,
for the drunken sailor who waits in her left pulse,
for the mother's knee, for the stockings,
for the garter belt, for the call—
the curious call
when you will burrow in arms and breasts
and tug at the orange ribbon in her hair
and answer the call, the curious call.
She is so naked and singular.
She is the sum of yourself and your dream.
Climb her like a monument, step after step.
She is solid.
As for me, I am a watercolor.
I wash off.
Response Form
Title : For my Lover, Returning to His Wife
Author : Anne Sexton
Analyzer : Ifti Luthviana Dewi
This writer
(a women) is using first person as the point of view who tells her affair love
story with a marriage man. For me, it is quiet hard to be understood since the writer uses many
metaphors and gives implicit massages to the reader.
In line 1st-8th
the writer shows that his real wife is a perfect woman and she has anything that the man needs. Moreover, the real wife want to do anything for the
man, caring their children, cooking, and other activity related to the wife daily
duty. The woman gives her life to the man. //she always been there darling//
shows that the women always been there for any reason, yet ironically the
writer says ‘my darling’. It is implicit that actually the writer also really love the man. //let’s face it, I have been momentary// means that the writer position in
the man’s life is just temporary. In here the writer compares herself with the man’s real wife. The writer describes his wife with a good word perfectly, instead the writer
describe s herself poorly. It is shown in the line 10th-11th the
writer uses metaphor to describe herself that she is lack of self-confidence. In
the line 17th-28th the writer tells what the real wife had
done for his man, however the writer words reflect the deep hurt that the
writer feels. The writer also tries to pretend that she herself has a control as well as give permission to the man. Therefore she tells him to go back to his perfect real wife even she
still wants him too yet she literally knows that he will not leave his real wife only for her. It is
showed in the line 29th //I give you back your heart//I give you
permission//.
In the last
line //as for me, Iam a water color// the writer pretend her as a watercolor
that easy to be erased. It means that now she is giving up and hoping that the man will
be easy to forget her. I think it has an implicit message that the writer wants to say good bye for the man.
