Slashed legs, sleeping pills, a river, and an oven

There's a familiar back and forth,

at the same age, same situation

A reflection casting backward

into the frost encrusted months

of nineteen-sixty-three

Somber eyes that watch chipped polish

trace the texture of a belt,

test its strength

From the past, she stares, for

she knows the story--

she wrote it herself, once

(and once is all you need, if you're good at crafting tales)

--and though she whispers that

some stories should not be told,

these Plathlike machinations

are owl's talons that crush

the whimpering heart