Morning Song

- Sylvia Plath


Love set you going like a fat gold watch.

The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry

Took its place among the elements.



Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.

In a drafty museum, your nakedness

Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.



I'm no more your mother

Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its
own slow

Effacement at the wind's hand.



All night your moth-breath

Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:

A far sea moves in my ear.



One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral

In my Victorian nightgown.

Your mouth opens clean as a cat's. The window square



Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try

Your handful of notes;

The clear vowels rise like balloons.


[Note: This poem was originally posted by Bobbie in August 2007 to honor Sanjana.]