Sylvia Plath

You had never heard of Sylvia Plath

until you read about her in a hard-covered, non-fiction book

you bought at the airport in Arizona. 

The slight mispronunciation of her last name, 

the mild interest in how this strange, suicidal poet

was woven into a book about miscommunication with strangers.

This seemed oddly delightful to me. 

You never experienced Plath’s poems,

read much too young

grief, confusion, raw, open-mouthed pain

all there in tiny, neat font on the page,

an abstract fear that your happy childhood,

your seemingly effortless life could not understand.

Sylvia Plath poems

HBO movies late at night

Those magazines under Mr. Babcock’s bed

that you found while babysitting his sweet son only a few years younger than you.

I curl my toes around yours,

under our warm covers and rest next to you,

quiet pages turning,

as you peer through your reading glasses

at the life of Sylvia Plath neatly placed in context.