lady lazarus

• üçüncü ve sonuca ulaşmış intihar girişiminden bir yıl önce yazdığı şiir:
  
  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 featureless, fine
  jew linen.
  
  peel off the napkin
  o 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.