Anne Sexton's "The Starry Night"?

Question

I have a question. In Anne Sexton's poem "The Starry Night", when it says 'This is how / I want to die', what does 'this' refer to?
thanks for the help!

Answer 1

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of -- shall I say the word -- religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.

--Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.


I would understand it to mean that she wants to die in a scene like the picture, quietly without any hoopla or fanfare (from my life with no flag).

Answer 2

The last paragraph explains it. She wants to die in a rush of excitement. She didn't get her wish, as her method of suicide put her to sleep before her death.