For a Fatherless Son
Poem by Sylvia Plath
Hannah Brimer - Director, Editor
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You will be aware of an absence, presently,
Growing beside you, like a tree,

A death tree, color gone, an Australian gum tree ---
Balding, gelded by lightning--an illusion,

And a sky like a pig's backside,
an utter lack of attention.

But right now you are dumb.
And I love your stupidity,

The blind mirror of it. I look in
And find no face but my own, and you think that's funny.

It is good for me
To have you grab my nose, a ladder rung.

One day you may touch what's wrong ---

The small skulls, the smashed blue hills,
the god-awful hush.

Till then your smiles are found money.

For a Fatherless Son