Poem by Sylvia Plath

Barren Woman

Empty, I echo to the least footfall,
Museum without statues, grand with pillars, porticoes, rotundas.
In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks back into itself,
Nun-hearted and blind to the world. Marble lilies
Exhale their pallor like scent.

I imagine myself with a great public,
Mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos.
Instead, the dead injure me with attentions, and nothing can happen.
Blank-faced and mum as a nurse.

1. In Plaster
2. Black Pine Tree in an Orange Light
3. The Snowman on the Moor
4. Prologue to Spring
5. Pheasant

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