abrilaello

By Sylvia Plath

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.