March 2017
Jenna Rindo
jennakayrindo@gmail.com
jennakayrindo@gmail.com
I live with my husband Ron, our youngest son, Noah and a collection of wild and domesticated animals in rural Wisconsin. I worked as a pediatric intensive care nurse for almost a decade and try to incorporate my hospital experiences and love for all things related to human anatomy and physiology into my poetry. I now teach English to Arabic, Hmong, Spanish, Chinese and Kurdish students. I have always been intrigued, astonished and overwhelmed by Sylvia Plath's work. Though I am no Plath scholar, I have read and re-read her poems, journals, biographies and Ted Hughes Birthday Letters.
I live with my husband Ron, our youngest son, Noah and a collection of wild and domesticated animals in rural Wisconsin. I worked as a pediatric intensive care nurse for almost a decade and try to incorporate my hospital experiences and love for all things related to human anatomy and physiology into my poetry. I now teach English to Arabic, Hmong, Spanish, Chinese and Kurdish students. I have always been intrigued, astonished and overwhelmed by Sylvia Plath's work. Though I am no Plath scholar, I have read and re-read her poems, journals, biographies and Ted Hughes Birthday Letters.
Sylvia’s Black Crackles
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.
-Sylvia Plath
Her hands work words, red stanzas break the black.
She craves a clean haven filled with art and light.
She hopes for rescue under earthen cracks.
She fingers her scars, genetics push back.
Dull with despair, until respect ignites.
She weaves cords of words, red lines thread the black.
Fevers brew, she reads the stars, consults the almanac.
She battles British drab and grime with spite.
She weds her death, spackles love into cracks.
Prose in stasis, incoming mail ransacked,
twisting her wool rags into rugs at night.
Her heart ticks words, red meter paces black.
She craves volumes before babies hijack
power for language, wisdom’s appetite.
She labors death, broken vows open cracks.
Daddy’s desertion canters an attack,
unmoored, manic, wedged in winter’s dark blight.
Her kingdom of art, red rain soaks the black.
She inhales death; no respect mends such cracks.
The moon has nothing to be sad about,
Staring from her hood of bone.
She is used to this sort of thing.
Her blacks crackle and drag.
-Sylvia Plath
Her hands work words, red stanzas break the black.
She craves a clean haven filled with art and light.
She hopes for rescue under earthen cracks.
She fingers her scars, genetics push back.
Dull with despair, until respect ignites.
She weaves cords of words, red lines thread the black.
Fevers brew, she reads the stars, consults the almanac.
She battles British drab and grime with spite.
She weds her death, spackles love into cracks.
Prose in stasis, incoming mail ransacked,
twisting her wool rags into rugs at night.
Her heart ticks words, red meter paces black.
She craves volumes before babies hijack
power for language, wisdom’s appetite.
She labors death, broken vows open cracks.
Daddy’s desertion canters an attack,
unmoored, manic, wedged in winter’s dark blight.
Her kingdom of art, red rain soaks the black.
She inhales death; no respect mends such cracks.
© 2017 Jenna Rindo
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF