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Poem of the Week
The Thin People
They are always with us, the thin people
Meager of dimension as the grey peopleOn a movie screen. They
Are unreal, we say:It was only in a movie, it was only
In a war making evil headlines when weWere small that they famished and
Grew so lean and would not roundOut their stalky limbs again though
peace
Plumbed the bellies of the miceUnder the meanest table.
It was during the long hunger-battleThey found their talent to persevere
In thinness, to come later,Into our bad dreams, their menance
Not guns, not abuses,But a thin silence.
Wrapped in flea-ridden donkey skins,Empty of complaint, forever
Drinking vinegar from tin cups: they
woreThe insufferable nimbus of the lot-drawn
Scapegoat. But so thin,So weedy a race could not remain in
dreams,
Could not remain outlandish victimsIn the contracted country of the head
Any more than the old woman in her
mud hut couldKeep from cutting the fat meat
Out of the side of the generous moon
when itSet foot nightly in her yard
Until her knife had paredThe moon to a rind of little light.
Now the thin people do not obliterateThemselves as the dawn
Greyness blues, reddens, and the outlineOf the world comes clear and fills with
color,
They persist in the sunlit room: the wall-
paperFrieze of cabbage-roses and cornflowers
pales
Under their thin-lipped smiles,Their withering kingship.
How they prop each other up!We own no wilderness rich and deep
enough
For stronghold against their stiffBattalions. See, how the tree boles flatten
And lose their good brownsIf the thin people simply stand in the
forest,
Making the world go thin as a wasp’s
nestAnd greyer; not even moving their bones.
Sylvia Plath
Posted at August 5, 2005 12:10 AM