It's a literary gift for all Anne Sexton fans. So vivid and personal, the rawness of this book time-capsuled the glimpse of her journey before she finally put the quietus in her own will.

The Starry Night by Anne Sexton

“That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.”
Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.