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

Effacement¹ at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath

Flickers² 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 vowels³ rise like balloons.