Friday, October 27, 2006

Sylvia Plath



Edge


The woman is perfected
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.


--------------------------------------
"Selected Poems of Sylvia Plath" edited by Rebecca Warren
(York Notes Advanced) (Paperback) Longman (28- Sep- 2001)

2 comments:

Suzanne said...

One of my favorite last lines. Perhaps my favorite.

Nick said...

As it was chronologically speaking her last poem (to be published?) I thought that it has acquired an even more sombre quality to it. And yes that last line is powerful.