Lady Lazarus|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
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air
