I.
I want to sleep
in an open field
to travel west, to walk freely at night,[2]
to the wildly heaving trees,
the gray ocean, angry with
white foam.[3]
II.
I dreamed the other night of running
after Ted through a large hospital,
winding hallways, intersecting
knowing he was with another woman,
hearing her laugh,
going into mad wards, men lying
on tables, eyes shooting back
beautiful women, soaking
in cold baths,
searching, looking,
looking for him everywhere.
And when I found him?
It had his face but it was my mother, my father.[4]
III.
Ted,
coming up the walk,
leaning against the car,
leaning into the doe-eyes
of a strange girl with brownish hair[5]
I could not tell the color of her eyes,
but Ted could,
his admiration-seeking smile,
her eyes souped up in giddy applause
before guilting into a run.[6]
‘Let’s make up,’ he wants
after only vague excuses.[7]
He snorts & snores
even now
in smug sleep.[8]
What a fool I’ve been.
Love has been an inexhaustible spring
for nourishment
and now
I gag.[9]
IV.
Frieda and Nicholas:
I birthed you into a world
of hair the color of blood oranges
and hands the strength of sand.
Forgive me for all the things I
wasn’t and still can not be.
Those towels set beneath the door
are my tangible love for you
their methane-soaked security
protecting your small
sleeping bodies.
My tired hands, lists
of positives and negatives…
.
…in the medias res
I hear footsteps
and that is my fate
and a gentle knock
which should be if
fate were kind
which should be, only
isn’t isn’t isn’t
and so my decision is sealed
and the alternatives go revolving
and snickering in their
little whistling void[10]
V.
darkness.
a dark room
with pinholes of light
each peering into the lives
of a person you’ve known
not the end of existence
but the ceaseless resurgence
of it
the realization that your room
was not your prison.
you are.[11]
VI.
Ted, you are a vain smiler,
a twister, a liar.[12]
Everything has become
ironic, ominous, deadly,
everything has gone barren.
Now, we are both of the world’s ash,
something from which nothing can flower
or come to fruit[13]
and our son hangs
from his rafter
his body, spinning
a black cut-out against the altar of the
west noon sun, orange like those afternoons
spent at Nauset Beach, all our toes
buried in the sand.
VII.
Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything
it is because we are dangerously near to wanting nothing.[14]
•
[1] Kukil, Karen V., “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath.” Anchor Books, New York, 2000, p. 191.
[2] Ibid., p. 93.
[3] Ibid., p. 94.
[4] Ibid., italicized portions taken from 447.
[5] Ibid., paraphrased from lines on 390.
[6] Ibid., 390.
[7] Ibid., paraphrased from lines on 391.
[8] Ibid., 2000, 391.
[9] Ibid., 2000, 392.
[10] Ibid., Appendix 7, 568.
[11] Ibid., 2000, 186.
[12] Ibid., 387.
[13] Ibid., 500.
[14] Ibid., 193.
Ariane Elizabeth is named after a Led Zeppelin song her parents misheard. When she is not traveling, she’s enjoying living in the country just outside Chicago, Illinois with her graphic designer husband. Her recent work is published in Chicago Literati, Eunoia Review, Pubslush, Rust + Moth, The Wayfarer and Three Line Poetry. A poetry reader for Gigantic Sequins, she can be found online at: arianelizabeth.com.
