an ode to Sylvia Plath

Judging by the silence
your children toss and turn in dreams
that no father or mother knows.

Those steps of yours, just now,
as if you repeatedly took a run-up
so as to leap -

No one inside
heard this rap
as a signal
to extinguish the night.

Only your fear still runs
to and fro. And feels doors, touches
tape, gobstoppers in each keyhole

to keep in the gas,
give no chance to rise.
You're already halfway.

Translation: 2008, John Irons