for silvia plath (20)

for silvia plath

the tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
even through the gift paper i could hear them breathe lightly,
through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby..
from "tulips"

when one bleeds freshly from a flesh wound,
platelets in the blood conspire with threads of
fibrin to bind & stick; to clot & keep more
blood & stuff from bleeding out. that clot dries,
gets hard; grows crusty & dark, keeps infection
at bay, gives healing a chance. if one picks &
pulls at the scab, the repair will be undone;
the wound will take longer to heal. when u bled
from yr numerous heart wounds, silvia, the scabs
were slow to form & easily ripped open again,
allowing those wounds to fester, suppurate &
putrefy; requiring not the angst-driven surgical
dissections of yr personal pain in the terse prosody,
sing-song repetitive phrasing, & violent imagery of
yr confessional poetry. what they required was
the sweet soothing salves of fairness, acceptance,
forgiveness & release. thus were yr gifts sullied.
yr poetic voice, the anguished wail of a withering,
suffering spirit that found no surcease. u applied
yr talents to murderous art, to bloodless vivisection
& unwrote yr own tenuous life by falling on the
the gleaming, toothy knife points of yr verse.

©Joseph McNair; 2009