"The Night Dances," by Sylvia Plath

The Night Dances

-Sylvia Plath

1              A smile fell in the grass.

2              Irretrievable!

3              And how will your night dances

4              Lose themselves.  In mathematics?

5              Sure pure leaps and spirals –

6              Surely they travel

7              The world forever, I shall not entirely

8              Sit emptied of beauties, the gift

9              Of your small breath, the drenched grass

10           Smell of your sleeps, lilies, lilies.

11           Their flesh bears no relation

12           Cold folds of ego, the calla,

13           And the tiger, embellishing itself –

14           Spots, and a spread of hot petals.

15           The comets

16           Have such a space to cross.

17           Such coldness, forgetfulness.

18           So your gestures flake 0ff –

19           Warm and human, then their pink light

20           Bleeding and peeling

21           Through the black amnesias of heaven.

22           Why am I given

23           These lamps, these planets

24           Failing like blessings, like flakes

25           Six-sided, white

26           On my eyes, my lips, my hair

27           Touching and melting.

28           Nowhere.