If I really am walking with ordinary habit 
past the same rest home on the same local street 
and see another waiting head at that upper front window, 
just as she would always sit, 
watching for anyone from her wooden seat, 
then anything can be true. I only know 
how each night she wrote in her leather books 
that no one came. Surely I remember the hooks 
of her fingers curled on mine, though even now 
will not admit the times I did avoid this street, 
where she lived on and on like a bleached fig 
and forgot us anyhow; 
visiting the pulp of her kiss, bending to repeat 
each favor, trying to comb out her mossy wig 
and forcing love to last. Now she is always dead 
and the leather books are mine. Today I see the head 
move, like some pitted angel, in that high window. 
What is the waiting head doing? It looks the same. 
Will it lean forward as I turn to go? 
I think I hear it call to me below 
but no one came no one came. 
The Waiting Head
written byAnne Sexton
© Anne Sexton


 



