Analysis of the The Kiss by Anne Sexton

THE KISS

 by Anne Sexton

My mouth blooms like a cut.
I've been wronged all year, tedious
nights, nothing but rough elbows in them
and delicate boxes of Kleenex calling crybaby
crybaby , you fool ! 

Before today my body was useless.
Now it's tearing at its square corners.
It's tearing old Mary's garments off, knot by knot
and see -- Now it's shot full of these electric bolts.
Zing! A resurrection!

Once it was a boat, quite wooden
and with no business, no salt water under it
and in need of some paint. It was no more
than a group of boards. But you hoisted her, rigged her.
She's been elected.

My nerves are turned on. I hear them like
musical instruments. Where there was silence
the drums, the strings are incurably playing. You did this.
Pure genius at work. Darling, the composer has stepped
into fire.

The poem is in free verse.  It has a very loose structure of five lines per stanza with a curtailed line closing each one.  The last lines of the stanza aren't uniform in any sense except for the fact that their shorter than the preceding lines.

The first line of the stanza could be about the narrator smiling or kissing.  There are two words dealing with the word red, reminding us of the lips she uses to kiss and smile with.  The first is a cut, where the blood wells up, the second is the bloom of a rose.  One can assume it's a rose bloom because of the colors associated with her lips, the color of a cut, and the classic association of roses with women.   

The second line emphasizes what a relief the kiss is.  The narrator has suffered at least a year of tedious nights with nothing in them but rough elbows.  One can assume rough elbows are what you get from cleaning all the time.  The poem is a little strange in anthropomorphizing a box of tissues as a chastising figure.  Here a box of tissues is addressed by it's trade name Kleenex.  The last line of the stanza is only five syllables signalling the end of the stanza and the beginning of a new one.  

The second stanza brings us back to the dissatisfaction of life before the kiss.  Particularly to the state of her body.  This stanza inverts the order of metamorphosis from elation and dissatisfaction found in the first stanza.  The first stanza starts off with the beauty of the kiss, and what it meant to her after enduring times of hardship. The lines of the second stanza will progress in the opposite direction, from the past to the present.  Where her body was dull and useless before it's been shot through with euphoria.  To use the narrators words it's been resurrected.  

The third stanza is a continuation on the conception of her body. Sexton was a feminist and confessional poet.  The idea of women's bodies and their possession is an important topic.  The stanza conveys the idea of a ship washed up on a barren shore.  An old boat that has been stranded for some time.  Here she details how it was forlorn without purpose, how the paint had faded, and how it been separated from the sea for some time.  There's a subtle sexual innuendo in here concerning saltwater under her body. The stanza comes back to the revitalization of the body through the rehabilitation of a ship.  In particular the line closes with the idea of being chosen.  Again, If your looking closely, it takes more than half of the poem to get to the bestower(or bestowee) of the kiss. 

The fourth and last stanza begins again with the immediacy of her body.  The first line of the last stanza has a 60's ring to it with the phrase turned on.  It's not simple passionate ardor that animates her body, but music and play.  Before the kiss her body was quiescent, she attributes this music in her body to her lover paradoxically a composer of this music in her.  The final attribution is to the genius of her lover.  A kiss bestowed upon the loved one at last.