Saturday, November 7, 2009

barren woman

empty, i echo to the least footfall,

museums without statues, grand with pillars, porticoes, rotundas.

in my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks back into itself,

nun-hearted and blind to the world. marble lilies

exhale their pallor like scent.

i imagine myself with a great public,

mother of a white nike and sever bald-eyed apollos.

instead, the dead injure me with attentions, and nothing can happen.

the moon lays a hand on my forehead,

blank-faced and mum as a nurse.

-sylvia plath