how we gnaw at the barrier because we are two

Then I think of you in bed, 

your tongue half chocolate, half ocean, 

of the houses that you swing into, 

of the steel wool hair on your head, 

of your persistent hands and then 

how we gnaw at the barrier because we are two. 

 

How you come and take my blood cup 

and link me together and take my brine. 

We are bare. We are stripped to the bone 

and we swim in tandem and go up and up 

the river, the identical river called Mine 

and we enter together. No one's alone. 

 

 [Anne Sexton {1928-1974} ‘December 11th’, from Selected Poems of Anne Sexton]