A Girl Reciting Sylvia Plath

by Mariah Sells

Today, she spit your words
like your own blackberries

and my,

my eyes cannot help but swell
at the sound of your suicidal
beauty—

(actions) gaping open

in this wild abyss. Your sad,
soft children needed you—
porcelain dolls left in the rain—
but your biological need differs
only

slightly.

Burden, you called them all,

just another bee added to
this over-populated box
we call life,

economy.

Lady Lazarus, your beauty
swells in my eyes like
Samson’s ego, gouged.

Feline, you failed nine lives.

I breathe you like fine air
sifted through my mother,
and I place you somewhere
near Mt. Olympus or
the Elysian Fields
next to silent Oenone.
Do you weep for
Paris,

Ted,

or for
humanity?