.

pylvia slath-ing

in the lake lined spray
of a blue sky day spent
on a bay-shaded bench,
I drift to the word-messy
muse of a head-in-the-oven
poetic-bound Plath who,
soft as summer, rests
on my knee wearing
only a paperback jacket
cold-pressed in turquoise,
and Colossus-clad, she
forges calamitous paths
through my head but
even her name sounds
like wading through mud,
her galoshes-bound words
with their thick aftermath,
plath-plath go her thoughts
through my sighs worn in
and worn out by successive
re-readings, her letters
house hours, each step
of a phrase though exquisitely
chosen weds shadows
to verse with the shove
and the suck of each
wrist-writhing wound
that weighs me down
to the blunt indefatigable
facts of her life