Anna Who was Mad (after Sexton)

Anna,
I want to write you down
like a broken chair
in our broken house, where

books
have been replaced
by bricks, our ladder

to the attic
stolen in the riot -

unlike you,
good wood failed
to keep me sane.

In this broken house,
Anna,
I want to write you down, nowhere
else,

where sunlight pours in,
not in cascades,

through cracked windows
as hot
as lava,

we turn into ashes
on the floor.