The Red Shoes / Anne Sexton

I stand in the ring

in the dead city

and tie on the red shoes.

Everything that was calm

is mine, the watch with an ant walking,

the toes, lined up like dogs,

the stove long before it boils toads,

the parlor, white in winter, long before flies,

the doe lying down on moss, long before the bullet.

מב"ע - מחקרים בספרות עברית - פרופ' זיוה שמיר