The Truth the Dead Know By Anne Sexton

<p>Production and Sound Design by Kevin Seaman</p><p> </p><p>The Truth the Dead Know</p><p>By Anne Sexton</p><p>For my Mother, born March 1902, died March 1959</p><p>and my Father, born February 1900, died June 1959</p><p> </p><p>Gone, I say and walk from church,</p><p>refusing the stiff procession to the grave,</p><p>letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.</p><p>It is June. I am tired of being brave.</p><p> </p><p>We drive to the Cape. I cultivate</p><p>myself where the sun gutters from the sky,</p><p>where the sea swings in like an iron gate</p><p>and we touch. In another country people die.</p><p> </p><p>My darling, the wind falls in like stones</p><p>from the whitehearted water and when we touch</p><p>we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.</p><p>Men kill for this, or for as much.</p><p> </p><p>And what of the dead? They lie without shoes</p><p>in their stone boats. They are more like stone</p><p>than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse</p><p>to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.</p><p> </p><p> </p>