Thalidomide by Sylvia Plath

O half moon–
Half-brain, luminosity–
Negro, masked like a white,
Your dark
Amputations crawl and appall–
Spidery, unsafe.
What glove
What leatheriness
Has protected
Me from that shadow–
The indelible buds.
Knuckles at shoulder-blades, the
Faces that
Shove into being, dragging
The lopped
Blood-caul of absences.
All night I carpenter
A space for the thing I am given,
A love
Of two wet eyes and a screech.
White spit
Of indifference!
The dark fruits revolve and fall.
The glass cracks across,
The image
Flees and aborts like dropped mercury.

—————

The End

And that’s the End of the Poem

© Poetry Monster, 2021.

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