The end of the affair is always death.
She's my workshop. Slippery eye,
out of the tribe of myself my breath
finds you gone. I horrify
those who stand by. I am fed.
At night, alone, I marry the bed.
Finger to finger, now she's mine.
She's not too far. She's my encounter.
I beat her like a bell. I recline
Anne Sexton will repeat this sentence as a refrain at the end of each verse of this poem. It helps us to build a context while reading, and to understand all of her acts are directed toward the final stage of masturbating in her bed. In other words, this is what her love life has come to.
The Ballad of the Lonely Masturbator