Jade -- <br />Stone of the side, <br />The antagonized <br /> <br />Side of green Adam, I <br />Smile, cross-legged, <br />Enigmatical, <br /> <br />Shifting my clarities. <br />So valuable! <br />How the sun polishes this shoulder! <br /> <br />And should <br />The moon, my <br />Indefatigable cousin <br /> <br />Rise, with her cancerous pallors, <br />Dragging trees -- <br />Little bushy polyps, <br /> <br />Little nets, <br />My visibilities hide. <br />I gleam like a mirror. <br /> <br />At this facet the bridegroom arrives <br />Lord of the mirrors! <br />It is himself he guides <br /> <br />In among these silk <br />Screens, these rustling appurtenances. <br />I breathe, and the mouth <br /> <br />Veil stirs its curtain <br />My eye <br />Veil is <br /> <br />A concatenation of rainbows. <br />I am his. <br />Even in his <br /> <br />Absence, I <br />Revolve in my <br />Sheath of impossibles, <br /> <br />Priceless and quiet <br />Among these parrakeets, macaws! <br />O chatterers <br /> <br />Attendants of the eyelash! <br />I shall unloose <br />One feather, like the peacock. <br /> <br />Attendants of the lip! <br />I shall unloose <br />One note <br /> <br />Shattering <br />The chandelier <br />Of air that all day flies <br /> <br />Its crystals <br />A million ignorants. <br />Attendants! <br /> <br />Attendants! <br />And at his next step <br />I shall unloose <br /> <br />I shall unloose -- <br />From the small jeweled <br />Doll he guards like a heart -- <br /> <br />The lioness, <br />The shriek in the bath, <br />The cloak of holes.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/purdah/
