Behind him the hotdogs split and drizzled <br />On the public grills, and the ochreous salt flats, <br />Gas tanks, factory stacks- that landscape <br />Of imperfections his bowels were part of- <br />Rippled and pulsed in the glassy updraught. <br />Sun struck the water like a damnation. <br />No pit of shadow to crawl into, <br />And his blood beating the old tattoo <br />I am, I am, I am. Children <br />Were squealing where combers broke and the spindrift <br />Raveled wind-ripped from the crest of the wave. <br />A mongrel working his legs to a gallop <br />Hustled a gull flock to flap off the sandspit. <br /> <br />He smoldered, as if stone-deaf, blindfold, <br />His body beached with the sea's garbage, <br />A machine to breathe and beat forever. <br />Flies filing in through a dead skate's eyehole <br />Buzzed and assailed the vaulted brainchamber. <br />The words in his book wormed off the pages. <br />Everything glittered like blank paper. <br /> <br />Everything shrank in the sun's corrosive <br />Ray but Egg Rock on the blue wastage. <br />He heard when he walked into the water <br /> <br />The forgetful surf creaming on those ledges.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/suicide-off-egg-rock/
