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.

12am - dressing up naked - Joel Tee

layer by layer,
I peel off this
crumbling armour.
Dirty work. Mea culpa,
exposing the sin of
desire. My hands
bleed red. Show of face.
Throw away this Judas to the Jesus
in his head. Under this lonely state
we’ll all fade. So layer
by layer I strip this soul
naked, where is that Scapel,
where are the bandages?
and a surgeon gotta have his
gloves. My stars shine ahead
like lost sages, So layer
by layer I reopen resilient
wounds that just
wouldn’t heal. Layer by
layer I dress up by unclothing
the deceiving.

(It’s a mess of red
and white on the floor.
That is my body.)
My soul runs free.


(Information should be accurate at the time of poem submission.)

Joel Tee is currently a secondary four student studying in Singapore. His hobbies include reading, writing and playing the guitar among other things he likes history, literature, and music. He writes poetry for leisure in his spare time. (http://www.poetrybillboard.com/authorview.asp?aid=27)