Poem by Sylvia Plath

The Sleepers

No map traces the street
Where those two sleepers are.
We have lost track of it.
They lie as if under water
In a blue, unchanging light,
The French window ajar

Curtained with yellow lace.
Through the narrow crack
Odors of wet earth rise.
The snail leaves a silver track;
Dark thickets hedge the house.
We take a backward look.

Among petals pale as death
And leaves steadfast in shape
They sleep on, mouth to mouth.
A white mist is going up.
The small green nostrils breathe,
And they turn in their sleep.

Ousted from that warm bed
We are a dream they dream.
Their eyelids keep up the shade.
No harm can come to them.
We cast our skins and slide
Into another time.

1. The Disquieting Muses
2. Words for a Nursery
3. Sleep in the Mojave Desert
4. Gold Mouths Cry
5. All the Dead Dears

William Davies The Sleepers ("As I walked down the waterside")

Print

1793 Views

Last Poems

To Russian version