Morning Song--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

 

Effacement at the wind's hand.

 

All night your moth-breath

 

Flickers 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 vowels rise like balloons.