And so am I. I think. Of course I’d like to think I’m sui
generis but everyone is sui generis so everyone is in reality more like
everyone else. WTF.
Lady Lazarus
I have done it
again.
One year in every
ten
I manage it----
A sort of walking
miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi
lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a
featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?----
The nose, the eye
pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a
day.
Soon, soon the
flesh
The grave cave ate
will be
At home on me
And I a smiling
woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I
have nine times to die.
This is Number
Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each
decade.
What a million
filaments.
The
peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand
and foot
The big strip
tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and
bone,
Nevertheless, I am
the same, identical woman.
The first time it
happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I
meant
To last it out and
not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call
and call
And pick the worms
off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like
everything else,
I do it
exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels
like hell.
I do it so it feels
real.
I guess you could
say I've a call.
It's easy enough to
do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to
do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad
day
To the same place,
the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For
the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my
heart----
It really goes.
And there is a
charge, a very large charge
For a word or a
touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my
hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr
Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a
shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I
underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash ---
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there
is nothing there----
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr
Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red
hair
And I eat men like
air.
(1965, Sylvia Plath, Ariel)
*****
There is a charge for the hearing of my
heart.
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