Sylvia Plath(1932–1963)
Morning Song
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
T h e midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. N e w statue.
In a drafty m u s e u m , your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
O n e cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your m o u t h opens clean as a cat's. T h e window square
W h i t e n s and swallows its dull stars. And n o w you try
Your handful of notes;
T h e clear vowels rise like balloons.
1965