SYLVIA PLATH MADE ME DO IT: A story in verse

Other sample poems from the book can be found here:

Pink Cotton Candy

Debbie's Canzone

Contemplations

At the Pool After Closing Hours

AT THE POOL AFTER CLOSING HOURS
taken from Sylvia Plath Made Me Do It

It excites me more than it should when I slip
through the unlocked door past the sauna room. No
one can see my tomato body as I

wash up for my death.

Rafters are silent with echoes of snickers
at some buffalo butt waddling up ladders,
or the loud cascade of her dive. I am free

now to be naked.

Bobbing on the plank, I stand watching eerie
green glows of dimmed lights flicker like dreamy fires.
Without thinking, I am diving towards the

tiles at the bottom.

Tender toes carve lovely ripples as I move
downwardly like a seal, hands flat at my hips.
I want to tear off the flabby jowls of my

face. Fragments of skin

would bob on the surface, my ass fat melons
a surprise for tomorrow’s lifeguard. Oh yes.
I would float like a baby whose hour has come.

Water, come take me:

You’ve consumed ninety percent of my body.
I sleep like forever before my forehead
hits. I jolt awake with the dry ice of pain

up and down my spine.

I am spinning, I am trying not to paddle
to the air, I am light as air as I clutch
nose and mouth shut. Why's it so hard to die?

God does not answer.

But my body has already resigned to
air above the waves. I cough up water as
I nurture a crimson halo of blood, of

pain. My heart hurts more.

Water, look at your face now. You’re diluting
my blood to complete the pool with my dark smiles
bobbing. No one would ever understand my

sweet, delicious act.

Fingers caress my dripping forehead. Warmed, I
lick off blood like cake frosting. My tongue is red,
hot as harlot lips. My hands supple for want.

No, I am not dead.

I've risen anew from the pool, a woman
now slim. I have beautiful limbs, I exist.
Footprints follow after me with aching stains.

Blood has its beauty.

Life was one long battle, mirrors capture my
shining moment, my skull’s gleaming. I splash cold
water onto my face, it now knows how to

glow like a stonefire.

White bandages are my new turban. I have
conquered illusion; I’ve fooled all but myself.
My eyes are tiles shimmering under water.

They hold no bottom.

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