The Resurrection of Sylvia Plath Read online

No

  breakfast tray. I watch

  as all the nurses scurry from room

  to room with trays of spam and eggs.

  Hot cereal. Coffee and juice. There are

  no last meals here, no one asks what

  your final request might be. The first rule

  at the asylum is:

  THEY ALWAYS LIE TO YOU.

  There is no second rule. The doctor

  says it is like going to sleep. Go

  back to the first rule. I try to

  hide. There is nowhere to

  go. I shuffle to the most secluded

  corner of the asylum, curl into

  the fetal position with a blanket

  over my head. I want to

  disappear. They want me to

  vanish. Only angels can take me

  the way I need to go. The doctor

  comes. She is no angel. She told

  me a long time ago she would be

  the one to let me know before

  it happens. She says,

  “I’m letting you know.”

  It is too late. There is a climb

  into the bowels of the building.

  A green door opens. A woman, tall,

  frightening, masked, is at the head of the table

  behind the machine. A mattress. Taut

  sheets. Masked attendants. Armed robbers.

  I climb onto the table. Leather straps

  click into place, holding

  you down. Salve on my temples,

  electrodes into place, rubber

  stick clasped between the teeth.

  A switch, thrown.

  Darkness erased me.

  A Letter To Mummy, 24 February 1956

  England has me on a such a tight tether

  Dear mother, I think it might be the weather

  To flick on the gas costs me a shilling

  But the heat is only on one side;

  on the other side it is damned chilling.

  Yet I would rather be here than the United States

  where they pack women into cramped little crates

  Of course the sickbays here are absurd

  I go in with the flu, come out like a turd.

  This illness coincides with my monthly stain

  I need respite from my body, especially my brain.

  Letters, letters, letters from me to you

  Of course nothing we write is absolutely true

  My nose is oozing and red and I have trouble

  arising from bed. I need you to cook me some broth

  stuff my tattered nostrils with cloth.

  I need a man to love me well

  Perhaps some tall devil will deliver me to hell.

  Ah, my head is too much a sewer.

  My soul my tainted thoughts do skewer.

  Dear mother, I'd rather be red than dead

  dead than bled, waking up with a Ted

  in my bed, she said, she said, I'll have

  to bid my adieu's, adieu's, marry a dude

  named Ted Hughes, enough of these words,

  this letter is through, from me to you, adieu, adieu.

  “When I Say I Must Write - - - -” 25 Jan. 1956

  I mean nothing else matters. Publishing be damned, I’ll write

  anyway. It is the horror of the blank

  page that frightens me most. My inner life is nothing

  but fragments, shards of glass, funhouse mirrors, I’ll tell

  you in a letter what I want

  you to hear, what I wish were the facts. The facts. How

  different than truth, truth is in the mouth of the teller, the mind

  of the beholder, truth is flesh. Facts are stone. Alas, I am

  split between what is and what I say, what I want and what

  I pray. My present is unwrapped, soiled by yesterday’s

  fierce compression, by tomorrow’s terrors. I slip

  into the present like it was a dirty dress, ripped, ravaged, stained.

  It does not fit me well, I spill out like light, naked skin

  strip-teasing me to the world, my nipple, a poem, the scars

  on my thighs, private hair, the crack, a short story, my smile,

  my mind. You want this piece, he wants that one, she wants

  another, I barely want any of it, but all of it is not enough.

  I write it , I tell it, I shape it, I shift it. This is my story, my truth,

  my flesh. My flesh is the truth, what I write is stone.

  Thinking Of You

  I am wet with myself,

  walk masked and made up, chat down

  for tea. England fog obscures the leaves

  dwelling at the bottom of my cup, no fortunes to be

  read here. There is such an urgency to finish

  things. I am quickly

  speeding into destiny. We tarry so

  briefly with those we love, those who

  love us depart in barbed carriages tugged by night

  coloured horses with whip flayed backs. Oh my! I meant

  this to be a cheerful letter, coming so close

  to Christmas too. I think I might travel

  to Paris, stand on a cold, snowy corner with the gift you gave

  me in my hands. I want to open it on that Day, find you inside.

  Outside The Matisse Cathedral

  Outside the nunnery I never

  dreamed anyone might cast the gate

  ajar, not for me. Men with eyes of brick brace

  nunneries with stone walls about

  them, keep the Sisters in, locked away -- only the

  eyes of Sweet Jesus caress them when they drop

  their black cloaks, kneel naked by simple cots, pray

  for faith with slow hands. That cathedral -- small, pure, clean

  cut, white, shut tight from the likes of me. My face tight

  against the barred gate, sobbing relentlessly in hopeless

  desire when her voice broke over me. "Ne pleurez plus,

  entrez," and the Mother Superior let me in. Touched by her,

  sun spilling over solid stone walls I fell to my knees

  the heart of Christ beating my eyes with light. Had I

  stayed within these walls the rest of my life

  it all might have been different. Forget

  poetry. Even stone would sing my song.

  How I Come

  Listen to my voice: angry, bitter, dark, gravel,

  compressed. Difficult to believe I once went

  to church, now I launch my poetry like a

  doddering grey spews sputum. Not the husband,

  the father, the mother, nay, the children either, it was

  the poison arrows fired by the world within. No one

  helped me die. I asked for help, where are

  my Gods now? All

  Lords of mirrors, the God we see is the God

  we are. I shall draw my bath, drop myself

  into the steaming broth, thrash madly

  until the stains of my coming drop through

  ceilings, floors, rugs, you will not walk

  a step without treading on me. I have not

  always been like this. Upon a time once

  a young woman awaiting laughter, dance, white

  wine. Then when I was already wounded

  he came with another woman, took me

  aside, ripped off my earring, wrenched the clip

  from my hair. I bit him on the cheek, drew

  his blood, that is why we married. There is

  more to tell, his truth, my truth, God's

  truth. Nothing holds up under

  intense scrutiny. Death has

  opened my eyes, now you desire me. I come

  cloaked in language, the last betrayal.

  I Gave Him The Phone

  I felt it coming.
She was thick

  with herself, she had more than

  enough to give. It was how she

  disguised her thefts. Hidden beneath

  long flowing coat and costume men

  smelled her moisture, her earthen

  desire. When she raised her silk

  nightgown, dropped it over my

  husband like a shroud, all his breaths

  were filled with her scent. I felt

  it coming. He went to her in

  secret, penetrated her with his

  poetry. One day I came

  home early from shopping. The phone

  was ringing. He fell

  down the steps trying to

  answer its insistent ring. I arrived

  first. When I spoke

  she answered. She lowered

  her voice, tried to sound

  like a man. She asked

  for my husband. I did not

  give him to her; I gave him

  the phone. She took him.

  Through the receiver, through

  the tiny holes, sucked him in

  like he was dusty straw. I felt

  it coming. I gathered up

  the children, drove and drove

  and drove my car from one

  emptiness to the next. I felt

  it coming but it was him

  who I gave my heart to,

  him who I trusted, him

  who killed me. Not her.

  My Song

  This is my fire. Everything ends

  here. This is where the rubbish

  burns. Page by page I throw in

  this love, this story that will never

  have become written. Not ink, not

  words, but fire, smoke, ashes blow

  in the ill wind. No one will read, no

  one will reap fortune, instead of his

  birthday present I give you fire

  and smoke. Look, look, look mother

  this is the book I wrote for Ted, look

  these are the letters you wrote to

  me, these are the rough drafts, the scum

  from the desk of my husband who

  is with her. This is my fire, the wind

  lifts the ashes into the sky, whirling

  swirling, I grasp hold of my dress, kick

  my legs up and dance, dance, dance, listen

  to the wind scream. This is my fire.

  This is my song.

  23 Fitzroy Road

  (I)

  On Fitzroy Road a shadow stands

  at the window. Neighbors watch.

  They think it is a woman they

  know. Waiting for her true

  love dressed in black costume.

  Death comes dressed in colours,

  a wool of night scrawled about

  his neck. A noose. A muffler

  to quiet a wife, a shadow, a stark

  grimace. At the window a shadow

  within shadow, within shadow, even

  tempered. As light fades the shadow

  stands longer, yet longer. The fingers

  cold, wrapped in shawl, dead cold.

  Ice on the glass.