“Mother of otherness, Eat me.--from "Poem for a Birthday - Who", written 1960”

“Love is the bone and sinew of my curse.--from "Poem For A Birthday - The Stones", written 1959”

“I have stitched life into me like a rare organ--from "Three Women: A Poem for Three Voices", written 1962”

“They had to call and callAnd pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.--From the poem "Lady Lazarus", written 23-29 October 1962”

“You smile.No, it is not fatal.--from "The Other", written 2 July 1962”

“Backward we traveled to reclaim the dayBefore we fell, like Icarus, undone;All we find are altars in decayAnd profane words scrawled black across the sun.--From the poem "Doom of the Exiles", written 16 April 1954”

“Is it the sea you hear in me,Its dissatisfactions?Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness?--from "Elm", written 19 April 1962”