Dying of the Light

To Sylvia

To Sylvia Plath – who understood me when nobody else did.

"Nobody wanted your dance,

Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering

Drowning life and your effort to save yourself,

Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,

Looking for something to give."

If only you could see now

How many of us

Found refuge

And solace

In your strange glitter

In your dance

If only we had an address

A post-box

To send our letters

Our love

Our praise

If only you knew

That you were not alone

Not crazy nor neurotic

If you knew how many

Held onto Esther as if she were their own lives

Held onto your every haunting word

Maybe then you would not have felt so cold

Perhaps then the world would not have looked so bleak

So dark so empty

But you are there now,

And we are still here.

And all that our love

Will ever amount to

Is a few red tulips

Wilting wordlessly beside your name.