Cut

by Sylvia Plath

for Susan O'Neill Roe


What a thrill——
My thumb instead of an onion
The top quite gone
Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,
A flap like a hat,
Dead white,
Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,
The Indian's axed your scalp.
Your turkey wattle
Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.
I step on it,
Clutching my bottle
of pink fizz. A celebration, this is
Out of a gap
A million soldiers run,
Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they one?
O my
Homunculus, I am ill.
I have taken a pill to kill

The thin
Papery feeling.
Saboteur,
Kamikaze man——

The stain on your
Gauze Ku Klux Klan
Babushka
Darkens and tarnishes and when
The balled
Pulp of your heart
Confronts its small
Mill of silence

How you jump——
Trepanned veteran
Dirty girl,

Thumb stump