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Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath

Cut

For Susan O'Neill Roe

What a thrill ——
My thumb instead of an onion.
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of a hinge
 
Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white.
Then that red plush.
 
Little pilgrim,
The Indian’s axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls
 
Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
Of pink fizz.
 
A celebration, this is.
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.
 
Whose side are they on?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to kill
 
The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man ——
 
The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux Klan
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
 
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence
 
How you jump ——
Trepanned veteran,
Dirty girl,
Thumb stump.

#Americans #Suicide #Women #XXCentury

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