For This

A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)

If I’ve reached for your lines (I have)

like letters from the dead that stir the nerves

dowsed you for a springhead

to water my thirst

dug into my compost skeletons and petals

you surely meant to catch the light:

-at work in my wormeaten wormwood-raftered

stateless underground

have I a plea?

If I’ve touched your finger

with a ravenous tongue

licked from your palm a rift of salt

if I’ve dreamt or thought you

a pack of blood fresh-drawn

hanging darkred from a hook

higher than my heart

(you who understand transfusion)

where else should I appeal?

A pilot light lies low

while the gas jets sleep

(a cat getting toed from stove

into nocturnal ice)

language uncommon and agile as truth

melts down the most intractable silence

A lighthouse keeper’s ethics:

you tend for all or none

for this you might set your furniture on fire

A this we have blundered over

as if the lamp could be shut off at will

rescue denied for some

and still a lighthouse be

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• Two Lovers And A Beachcomber By The Real Sea by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Two Campers In Cloud Country by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Trio Of Love Songs by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• To Eva Descending The Stair by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• To A Jilted Lover by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• Tinker Jack And The Tidy Wives by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Trial Of A Man by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Tour by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Times Are Tidy by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Thin People by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Swarm by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Surgeon At 2 A.M. by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Stones by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Snowman on the Moor by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Sleepers by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Shrike by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Rival by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Ravaged Face by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Rabbit Catcher by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath
• The Queen’s Complaint by Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath

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