| |
|
| |
|
| |
I have done it again. |
| |
One year in every ten |
| |
I manage it— |
| |
|
|
|
A sort of walking miracle, my skin |
|
5 |
Bright as a Nazi lampshade, |
| |
My right foot |
| |
|
| |
A paperweight, |
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My face a featureless, fine |
|
|
Jew linen. |
|
|
|
|
10 |
Peel off the napkin |
| |
O my enemy. |
| |
Do I terrify? — |
| |
|
|
|
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of
teeth? |
| |
The sour breath |
|
15 |
Will vanish in a day. |
| |
|
| |
Soon, soon the flesh |
|
|
The grave cave ate will be |
| |
At home on me |
| |
|
| |
And I a smiling woman. |
|
20 |
I am only thirty. |
| |
And like the cat I have nine times to die. |
|
|
|
| |
This is Number Three. |
| |
What a trash |
| |
To annihilate each decade. |
| |
|
|
25 |
What a million filaments. |
|
|
The peanut-crunching crowd |
| |
Shoves in to see |
| |
|
| |
Them unwrap me hand and foot |
| |
The big strip tease. |
|
30 |
Gentlemen, ladies |
| |
|
| |
These are my hands |
| |
My knees. |
| |
I may be skin and bone, |
| |
|
|
|
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman. |
|
35 |
The first time it happened I was ten. |
| |
It was an accident. |
| |
|
| |
The second time I meant |
| |
To last it out and not come back at all. |
|
|
I rocked shut |
| |
|
|
40 |
As a seashell. |
| |
They had to call and call |
| |
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls. |
| |
|
|
|
Dying |
| |
Is an art, like everything else, |
|
45 |
I do it exceptionally well. |
| |
|
| |
I do it so it feels like hell. |
|
|
I do it so it feels real. |
| |
I guess you could say I've a call. |
| |
|
| |
It's easy enough to do it in a cell. |
|
50 |
It's easy enough to do it and stay put. |
| |
It's the theatrical |
| |
|
| |
Comeback in broad day |
| |
To the same place, the
same face, the same brute |
| |
Amused shout: |
| |
|
|
55 |
'A miracle!' |
| |
That knocks me out. |
| |
There is a charge |
| |
|
|
|
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge |
| |
For the hearing of my heart— |
|
60 |
It really goes. |
| |
|
| |
And there is a charge, a very large charge |
| |
For a word or a touch |
| |
Or a bit of blood |
| |
|
| |
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes. |
|
65 |
So, so, Herr Doktor. |
| |
So, Herr Enemy. |
| |
|
| |
I am your opus, |
| |
I am your valuable, |
| |
The pure gold baby |
| |
|
|
70 |
That melts to a shriek. |
| |
I turn and burn. |
| |
Do not think I
underestimate your great concern. |
| |
|
| |
Ash, ash— |
| |
You poke and stir. |
|
75 |
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there— |
| |
|
| |
A cake of soap, |
| |
A wedding ring, |
| |
A gold filling. |
| |
|
| |
Herr God, Herr Lucifer |
|
80 |
Beware |
| |
Beware. |
| |
|
| |
Out of the ash |
| |
I rise with my red hair |
| |
And I eat men like air. |
| |
|