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Edge

The woman is perfected
Her dead

Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity

Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare

Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.

Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little

Pitcher of milk, now empty
She has folded

Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden

Stiffens and odors bleed
From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.

The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.

She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.

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Comments

1 - 7 of 7
  • SurelyWritten
    January 18, 2007
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    one of my favorites by Plath to be sure... especially the last three couplets... stellar darkness..

  • somekindofdoom
    October 2, 2006
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    all about suicide

    i love this poem, i´m german and live in germany, so i dont understand this poem in the way an american/english do, but i see the threatend woman behind this symbols and imagerys, i understand the allusion to saint catherine (bare feet - i´ve read this in a biography), and also the greek necessity ( to get out of disgrace through killing yourself) ...
    what means the coiled child, the serpent, pitcher of milk, the garden, the bleeding odors... which part plays the moon? i dont know...

  • Menahen
    July 21, 2005
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    Wow...I aspire to write this well.
    Edited on Jul 21, 11:15 because ''.

  • Redstormy
    June 14, 2005
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    Shelly I totally agree, Sylvia was a wonderful writer.
    I love some of the images she uses, especially that last trophe.

    "She is used to this sort of thing.
    Her blacks crackle and drag."

    Red

  • Ava Noire
    June 11, 2005
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    Folding back into herself, and stepping over the edge and succumbing. "The woman has perfected," makes me think there is a pureness in being without pain in the toppling over the edge.

  • TheHourglass
    April 12, 2004
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    I think the last poem she ever wrote, which makes it sound even more foreboding than it would've normally.
    It's as if she's saying she has nothing else to live for, having already accomplished everything, and yet she's not happy with the results. Being "perfected" sounds more like a facade than anything, especially since she was so determined to -be- perfect in real life. Perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect daughter and student...getting the shock that it's impossible to be all those things and becoming disillusioned has got to be slightly traumatic..


  • November 5, 2003
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    i think sylivas poems are just the bst she is one of the best poets that ARE AROUND

1 - 7 of 7