The abstracts hover like dull angels: <br />Nothing so vulgar as a nose or an eye <br />Bossing the ethereal blanks of their face-ovals. <br /> <br />Their whiteness bears no relation to laundry, <br />Snow, chalk or suchlike. They're <br />The real thing, all right: the Good, the True . . . <br /> <br />Salutary and pure as boiled water, <br />Loveless as the multiplication table. <br />While the child smiles into thin air. <br /> <br />Six months in the world, and she is able <br />To rock on all fours like a padded hammock. <br />For her, the heavy notion of Evil <br /> <br />Attending her cost less than a bellyache, <br />And Love the mother of milk, no theory. <br />They mistake their star, these papery godfolk. <br /> <br />They want the crib of some lamp-headed Plato. <br />Let them astound his heart with their merit. <br />What girl ever flourished in such company?<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/magi-2/
