Ariel By Sylvia Plath

Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue   
Pour of tor and distances.
 
God’s lioness,   
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees!—The furrow
 
Splits and passes, sister to   
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,
 
N*gger-eye   
Hooks—
 
Black sweet blood mouthfuls,   
Shadows.
Something else
 
Hauls me through air—
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.
 
White
Godiva, I unpeel—
Dead hands, dead stringencies.
 
And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.   
The child’s cry
 
Melts in the wall.   
And I
Am the arrow,
 
The dew that flies
Suicidal, at one with the drive   
Into the red
 
Eye, the cauldron of morning.

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