Sylvia Plath

The Festering Weight :
 
I know you deceived me with the bald-headed lady

My true kin;

My mother renounced

Your swollen giblets in my name.

See? I bleed tulips.

It’s happened twice before; I seed the earth

With children, little miracles.

I give them their inheritance – a

  Carriage full of baby dung

Flung

Down the coal hole

To remind me of you.

Pearly maggots suck my lip

Bee-like, to

Scent the failure that clings to me:

Heredity.

This enemy’s face is shifting cleverly;

First male, then jew, then

blurred and unfamiliar genitalia

like narcissi.

I reserve the right to reject

This choiceless life;

My body’s scarred with

Your refusals.

The blackbird sings out

Blackly.