Sylvia Plath

Thalidomide

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Thalidomide

O half moon—- Half-brain, luminosity—- Negro, masked like a white, Your dark Amputations crawl and appall—- Spidery, unsafe. What glove What leatheriness Has protected Me from that shadow—- The indelible buds. Knuckles at shoulder-blades, the Faces that Shove into being, dragging The lopped Blood-caul of absences. All night I carpenter A space for the thing I am given, A love Of two wet eyes and a screech. White spit Of indifference! The dark fruits revolve and fall. The glass cracks across, The image Flees and aborts like dropped mercury.