The Collected Poems

by Sylvia Plath

And they turn in their sleep. Ousted from that warm bed We are a dream they dream.

Loveless as the multiplication table.

In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking

Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware. Out of the ash I rise with my red hair And I eat men like air.

The woman is perfected. Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment