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“Edge”

 

by Sylvia Plath, February 5, 1963

   
   
  The woman is perfected 
  Her dead
   
  Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
  The illusion of a Greek necessity
 

 

5 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,
10 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
   
15 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.
20 Her blacks crackle and drag.