Lady Lazarus
I have done
it again.
One year in
every ten
I manage
it----
A sort of
walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a
Nazi lampshade,
My right
foot
A
paperweight,
My face a
featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off
the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I
terrify?----
The nose,
the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour
breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon
the flesh
The grave
cave ate will be
At home on
me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only
thirty.
And like
the cat I have nine times to die.
This is
Number Three.
What a
trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a
million filaments.
The
peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in
to see
Them
unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen,
ladies
These are
my hands
My knees.
I may be
skin and bone,
Nevertheless,
I am the same, identical woman.
The first
time it happened I was ten.
It was an
accident.
The second
time I meant
To last it
out and not come back at all.
I rocked
shut
As a seashell.
They had to
call and call
And pick
the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art,
like everything else,
I do it
exceptionally well.
I do it so
it feels like hell.
I do it so
it feels real.
I guess you
could say I've a call.
It's easy
enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy
enough to do it and stay put.
It's the
theatrical
Comeback in
broad day
To the same
place, the same face, the same brute
Amused
shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks
me out.
There is a
charge
For the
eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the
hearing of my heart----
It really
goes.
And there
is a charge, a very large charge
For a word
or a touch
Or a bit of
blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your
opus,
I am your
valuable,
The pure
gold baby
That melts
to a shriek.
I turn and
burn.
Do not
think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash
---
You poke
and stir.
Flesh,
bone, there is nothing there----
A cake of
soap,
A wedding
ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God,
Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the
ash
I rise with
my red hair
And I eat
men like air.