[audioplayer file=”https://admin.rattle.com/audio/BridgfordOven.mp3″]
for Sylvia Plath
The pedestrian nature of your death bothered me.
Because it was a stage: the two creamy children in bed,
The rugs under the door. The note left as instructions.
Afterwards, it was just grimy, the way houses are
When you move out, the texture of nostalgia.
Most of the time people hide their sadness
In cupboards, in boxes, in a pink diary
With a key. It was unfair that you were cheated on;
That you did all that work for the ledgers of heaven
And no one gave you credit. You were just young enough
Not to know that your story was typical,
That sending all those manuscripts out for someone else
Was part of life. How your jealousy flared,
Like a neon gas, the Houdini act of the betrayed.
How you got out: like a woman cut in half,
Like a cage lowered underneath the heavy blue waves
Of the ocean. Then, who can believe it? There you are!
A cartoon hurricane, black and white, howling,
Your judgmental mouth like Sunday school
Meets Nazi meets Athena, holding a thunderbolt,
Foggy, amorphous, an adolescent blowfish:
You can’t do this to me! No, no, no!
All these years later, your son has died by hanging,
And your husband is dead, too. I would like to
Make something else for you, besides death in the dawn.