Plath: The Jailer

Sylvia Plath Collected Poems
No. 185

　　　The Jailer
My night sweats grease his breakfast plate.
The same placard of blue fog is wheeled into position
With the same trees and headstones.
Is that all he can come up with,
The rattler of keys?

I have been drugged and raped.
Seven hours knocked out of my right mind
Into a black sack
Where I relax, foetus or cat,
Lever of his wet dreams.

Something is gone.
My sleeping capsule, my red and blue zeppelin
Drops me from a terrible altitude.
Carapace smashed,
I spread to the beaks of birds.

O little gimlets---
What holes this papery day is already full of!
He has been burning me with cigarettes,
Pretending I am a negress with pink paws.
I am myself. That is not enough.

The fever trickles and stiffens in my hair.
My ribs show. What have I eaten?
Lies and smiles.
Surely the sky is not that color,
Surely the grass should be rippling.

All day, gluing my church of burnt matchsticks,
I dream of someone else entirely.
And he, for this subversion,
Hurts me, he
With his armor of fakery,

His high cold masks of amnesia.
How did I get here?
Indeterminate criminal,
I die with variety---
Hung, starved, burned, hooked.

I imagine him
Impotent as distant thunder,
In whose shadow I have eaten my ghost ration.
I wish him dead or away.
That, it seems, is the impossibility.

That being free. What would the dark
Do without fevers to eat?
What would the light
Do without eyes to knife, what would he
Do, do, do without me?
　　　　　　　　　　17 October 1962


普拉斯《诗全编》
第185首

狱卒

我夜里的盗汗，为你的早餐盘涂油。
蓝雾的布告依旧，树木依旧，
墓碑依旧，都被轮子旋转到位。
那就是他所能搞出来的一切？
钥匙的锒铛声？

我一直被灌药、强奸。
七个钟头，我健康的心智被击倒，
在黑麻袋中昏睡，
放松，胎儿或猫，
他色梦的杠杆。

某种东西不见了。
我的安眠胶囊，红色的、蓝色的齐柏林飞艇
从令人恐惧的高度将我抛下。
硬壳碎了，
我铺展在群鸟的喙前。

啊，小手钻啊——
这薄纸似的日子已是千疮百孔！
他一直用香烟头烫我，
假装我是长着粉红爪子的女黑人。
我是我自己。这还不够。

高烧，在我的头发间滴注，变硬。
我的肋骨显了出来。我吃了什么？
谎言和微笑。
肯定，天空不是那种颜色，
肯定，青草应该会泛起涟漪。

我整天地将烧剩的火柴杆粘成教堂，
全身心地梦想着另外某个人。
而他，因为这破坏行为，
伤害我，他
装配着伪装的甲胄，

以及健忘症的高度冷漠的面具。
我怎么到了这里？
刑期不定的犯人，
我的死法五花八门——
吊死、饿死、烧死、钩死。

我想象他
痿得像遥远的雷，
我在他的阴影里已吃完我的幽灵配额。
愿他死去或远走。
这，看来绝无可能。

这不受影响。如果没有高烧
供它吞食，黑暗能做什么？
如果没有眼睛
供它宰割，光线能做什么？如果没有我，
他又能做什么、做什么、做什么？
　　　　　　　　1962 年10月17日