I want to keep you. I want to swallow
you. I want to do your laundry. I want

to feed you all your meals. I want to know
the taste of your sleeping eyes. Do not haunt

me like this. What am I to you? A dumb
toy? You do not do. You once let me kiss

each crumb from your mouth. You fed me on crumbs.
I feel my heart—it beats—hurts. What is this

need for something organic? something warm
to sleep on—the breasts of a trespasser

returning from alien dreams—let dawn
creep in. Even I can be a newborn,

screaming about this ghostly encounter
of ours, screaming until my voice is gone.

][][

“you do not do/ any more … ”—Sylvia Plath