Throwback Thursdays! We’re bringing back some of our favorite pieces from the last 30 years of Scribendi.

April 14, 1973
Deborah Coy – 1998

”And stepping into
something unknown
and transparent,
but all ten fingers stretched outward
flesh extended as metal
waiting for a magnet. “
from the Wedding Ring Dance
Anne Sexton
The day my first daughter was born
you danced the wedding ring dance.
We shared travail.
The diamond agony you fell,
the castanet-clacking of the two rings,
my womb thrumming in time.
I writhed my own waltz.
So we both danced on that day.

You severed the umbilical
of your marriage;
we stepped into
the unknown.

Worn out from
my marathon dance,
I stayed  awake
so l could suckle
my daughter.
You had no husband,
no mother  to  hold  you
as the radio played
the same old songs.

Life went on
like always,
Births, deaths,
a war ending, a war beginning.

My pelvis rocked,
one divided into two.
You swayed, the: moth changed,
Making a new equation.