Our Little Alcove

A poem by the author, in dedication of Plath. 

This little alcove where you and I sit—

nobody else is welcome. Or privy. Or there.

You mediate my thoughts, a woman tugging

on the tattered strings through my ears;

I let you spit and soothe your words to them,

in exchange for them printed on my shoes.

The alcove, our little private room—

poetry and little questions about gentle things

that we wonder about often at night;

wandering about the walls of the alcove,

knocking down framings and wood.

But, Sylvia, the air is heavier when you’re here

with me, writing and wording our ways by;

in the skeleton of the bare October house.

It’s easy to forget our beginning, as

sound-spinners and simple drinkers,

when we paint ourselves thieves of prose.

Why do you say we think too much?

Is it because our ears are stuffed with cotton?

And our throats cobwebs from a Poe poem?

We dream a lot before we sleep, but not while

we do, do we?

And then we’re told we drink too much?

Well, my lips have never known a wine;

yours I wouldn’t know or dare ask after.

We do drink the water we need to keep our hearts wet, don’t we?

When I was two years younger than now,

I saw a mother swan spread onto her nest

by the Cape. There were beady turtles and

gaudy terns right next to her, but she stayed;

even despite the cold that had me wondering,

squinting into the nipping air.

But she wasn’t thinking or praying,

she was sitting; laying.

And she wasn’t cooped up or stooped

and she wasn’t fixing anything,

she was progressing only a small bit.

But enough for her and the winds,

and the watchers who came up to the

wood platform, a lot like our alcove;

our little room. It’s sparse and clean

for when we need to come into it with

some odd new distress with an urgent need

to be addressed; like a Swiss poet reflex.