BY <i>SYLVIA PLATH</i>
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The woman is perfected.
Her dead
<br>
Body wears the smile of accomplishment,
The illusion of a Greek necessity
<br>
Flows in the scrolls of her toga,
Her bare
<br>
Feet seem to be saying:
We have come so far, it is over.
<br>
Each dead chid coiled, a white serpent,
One at each little
<br>
Pitcher of milk, now empty.
She has folded
<br>
Them back into her body as petals
Of a rose close when the garden
<br>
Stiffens and odors bleed
from the sweet, deep throats of the night flower.
<br>
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
<br>
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.