Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965-2003

To Plath, to Sexton

Skate Now a year after your death, fish-mother, skate, you swim up off the surface of the earth: your other-worldly face not saying anything face I can never meet inside the inside face not since the land came wet out of the water, face under all the pieces of light, how could I get to you? Never leave you. Please you! Teacher, spine in my spine: the spelling of the world kneels down before the skate. Guardian Angel in New York You stood in the doorway in the snow: Times Square, a late hour. The sill was black with chicken’s blood: your black boots open: your glasses like O’s: you touched your finger to your lips, you said, Here: Wisdom. Wisdom and power. To Plath, to Sexton So what use was poetry to a white empty house? the river at wolf 215 Wolf, swan, hare, in by the fire. And when your tree crashed through your house, what use then was all your power? It was the use of you. It was the flower. The Power Table You, lying across the wide bed, vertical, I, horizontal, you, I, in a green field two green paths flowered with xxxx’s and xxxx’s you, I, lined inside with pre-historic quarrels old black cuts in a wooden kitchen table the table where you sit down with your older brothers the table where things get settled once & for all the cow’s hip shaved down to the brand her body divided into zones Yes I am standing in the doorway yes my softness & my hardness are filled with a secret light, but I want world-light and this-world company. 216 door in the mountain ...