Sylvia Plath

A miniature madtalent? Sylvia Plath,

who'll wipe off the spit of your integrity,

rising in the saddle to slash at Auschwitz,

life tearing this or that, I am a woman?

Who'll lay the graduate girl in marriage,

queen bee, naked, unqueenly, shaming her shame?

Each English major saying, "I am Sylvia,

I hate marriage, I must hate babies."

Even men have a horror of giving birth,

mother-sized babies splitting us in half,

sixty thousand American infants a year,

U.I.D., Unexplained Infant Deaths,

born physically whole and hearty, refuse to live,

Sylvia...the expanding torrent of your attack.