Satan Says

Poems examine life as a child, a woman, and a mother; death; and our relationship to the world. This book, Olds’s first, was published when she was 37, and it launched her Pulitzer-winning career.

I am trying to write my
way out of the closed box
redolent of cedar. Satan
comes to me in the locked box
and says, I’ll get you out. Say
My father is a shit. I say
my father is a shit and Satan
laughs and says, It’s opening.