Sharon Olds

Sharon Olds was born in San Francisco, on November 19, 1942. She attended a Massachusetts boarding school before earning a BA at Stanford University in 1964, and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University in 1972. Her

How It Felt

by Sharon Olds (b. 1942)

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9      <date ty="birth" circa="false" suffix="ad">1942</date>
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15

Even if I still had the clothes I wore,
those first twelve years, even if I had
the clothes I would take off before my mother
climbed the stairs toward me: the glassy
Orlon sweater; the cotton dress,
under its smocking my breasts-to-be
accordion-folded under the skin of my chest;
even if I had all the sashes,
even if I had all the cotton

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