Diving into the Oven

Sarah Ann Loreth "The Oven"

Diving into the Oven
__________________

“the evidence worn
by salt and away into
this threadbare beauty”
—Adrienne Rich
“Diving into the Wreck,”
Poems 1971-1972
____________________

I didn’t have time—
To say goodbye not that
I wanted to, it all came as
A rather sudden surprise

I burned the letter—
In the heavy glass ashtray
While he watched me
Knowing it was over
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He’d already given up—
On me and I’d already done
The same with him, our so-so
Marriage was never that great

Ted was so much like Daddy—
Straight outta some dead Shoe
Just another Mytholmroyd hood
A dumb Heathcliff of the moors
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I expected a gun—
Him loading it with silver bullets
Or maybe a sharp knife-blade
To slice my delicate white throat

Or maybe even body-armor—
A black rubber diving suit with
Absurd flippers to awkwardly
Dump me into the Thames
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I could just see him—
Pretending to be like Cousteau
The Estate’s assiduous Captain
Aboard his dumpy schooner

There’s the ladder—
The ladder always hanging
Innocently down into the dark
Depths of the Oven’s guts

We both knew it was over—
Now it was time for him to
Play the final act out for me:
“The Rabbit Catcher” routine

I knew what it was for—
Others had used it many times
Before, an otherwise sundry
Maritime ladder into hell
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I went down—
Rung after rung and slowly
The gas immersed me in
That Popsicle blue light

I went down—
My strap-on high-heels
Like clumsy flippers as I
Dived into the Dead Sea
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I could feel him—
Shoving me further into
The Oven making sure that
I’d get plenty of gas

But now it was easy—
To forget what I came for
Among so many Wellesley
Wishes & Bell Jar dreams
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I’d always wanted to be—
A chic Mademoiselle diva
A Manhattan chanteuse
A famous New Yorker poet

I came to explore the Oven—
Poetry was always a descent
The words were maps leading
Down into the Underworld
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I came to see the damage—
If any treasures still prevailed
I stroked the bruise of my
Forehead, it was permanent

The thing I came for—
Was the thing I left behind
The wreck and not the story
of the wreck, the thing itself
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And not the myth either—
My drowned face always staring
Back at the Fitzroy flat and the
Threadbare beauty I left behind

The sexy Yorkshire Killer—
The handsome Rabbit Catcher
The Haunters doing the Hunting
I didn’t even have a chance
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This is the place and here—
I am Mermaid of the Wreck
My brown hair streams black
I am she: She was me

My drowned face screams—
Beneath my gangrene lips
Half-wedged and left to rot like
A Heptonstall water-eaten log

Oven

Sarah Ann Loreth "The Oven"

Oven
__________________

“But I would rather
be horizontal”
—Sylvia Plath
“I Am Vertical”
The Collected Poems
_____________________

I’d rather be horizontal—
my head stuck deep in an oven
not a tree with my root in the dirt
sucking up minerals & motherly love

I’m sick of the sad beauty—
of garden beds attracting all those
sorts of pretty ahs and lovely ohs
I have no desire to unpetal myself
_____________________

I don’t want immortality—
all I want is to endure one’s
longevity as long as I can
and then just call it quits

Tonight the last thing—
I want to see is the infinitesimal
light of all the stars and flowers that
have been stinking up my life
______________________

Give me the cool odor of gas—
while none of them are noticing me
I want to start sleeping forever now
the most perfect thing I can do

My thoughts are dimming—
it’s much more natural this way
just lying down & forgetting about
his ashtray against my forehead

Dishing Dido

Face Lift
—for Dido Merwin

“Writing is a self
that requires a
perpetual face-lift”
—Steven Gould Axelrod
Sylvia Path: The Wound
And the Cure of Words

Good news—for Dido!!!
She’s a born-again—Bitch Queen
Peeling back—the white bandages
The nauseous—wrinkles of the years
Three marriages—full of worries
She got so sick—of lime-green
Frog-husbands—such petty jerks

Now she’s pretty—as Cleopatra
Fizzy with Demerol—high as a kite
Beauty is back again—leaking out
Of every pore—of her lovely face
She feels precious—again knowing
No stretch marks—giving away the
Secrets of her—barren existence

Everybody raves—about her new face
She feels years younger—when she smiles
The stitches tighten—she thinks backwards
She’s twenty again—lounging on her
First husband’s—honeymoon lap
Years before—her lovely poodle died
Now in a vase—on the mantelpiece

Her new face—pink as a peach
Smooth as a—newborn baby’s ass
Only Sylvia's—curt smirk-face poet
Dishes Dido—from Court Green
Dares to say—out of the blue
That her rival looks—better as
Miss Havisham—widowed old nag

Withering Slights

Withering Slights
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“Plath’s The Rabbit Hunter
speaks from the trap—at
the edge of death”
—Claire Raymond
The Posthumous Voice in
Women’s Writing from
Mary Shelly to Sylvia Plath
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After her demise—
Sylvia got all the
Attention much to
Heathcliff’s chagrin

Arielesquely divine—
“Jane Eyre” Sylvia
Got the Estate busy
Burying her Deep
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Most writer’s estates—
Try to enhance the
Reputation of the
Deceased Author

But Heathcliff and—
Olwyn were bent on
Bringing the winged
Ariel goddess down
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Down from above—
Fighting tooth & nail
Editing & withholding
Her Books & Journals

Feuding & quibbling—
Writhing & slighting
Turning Plath into a
Hughes Cottage Industry

Harassed Heathcliff

Harassed Heathcliff
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“And I am the cargo
Of a coffin attended by swallows.
And I am the water
Bearing the coffin that will not be silent.”
—Ted Hughes
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Sylvia Plath kept—
Haunting Heathcliff
All the way to his last
Book “Birthday Letters”

She haunted him—
On the London busses
She skulked thru his
Uneasy nightly dreams
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Taking a bath once—
Testing the water with
His big toe—BINGO!!!
There she was again

Poor Heathcliff—
Haunted by Sylvia,
The Feminists & the
Lesbos Libers as well
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No wonder Heathcliff—
Was so snotty & snide
Overly sensitive about
The littlest things

Getting all upset—
Over Sylvia’s poem
“The Rabbit Catcher”
For some queer reason

The Rabbit Catcher

The Rabbit Catcher
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“to suggest that Sylvia Plath
was anything but heterosexual,
Ted Hughes wrote to Jacqueline
Rose, would be, in some countries,
“grounds for homicide.”
—Barbara Johnson
Mother Tongues: Sexuality,
Trials, Motherhood, Translation
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Yes, my dears—
Ted “Heathcliff” Hughes
As well as the Estate
Got so very upset

Withering Slights—
Echoing thru the Moors
The moody Mytholmroyd
Male Myth wasn’t ready
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Aghast & Agog—
Poor Wuthering Heights
Surely it’s “homicidal”
To do Lit Crit this way?

To interpret Plath’s—
Poetry as Gay not Str8t?
To look critically at
“The Rabbit Catcher”?
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And for Heaven’s sake—
To imply that Sylvia
Was calling Hughes
A “Rabbit Catcher”?

To imply that Heathcliff—
Sylvia’s esteemed husband
Was both a Rabbit Catcher
And a Yorkshire Killer?

Late Show

Late Show—
for David Trinidad
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The way Linda Darnell
In “Fallen Angel” says
“So What?” to Percy
Kilbride in the dumpy
diner after she’s come
back from a night on
the town, the look on
Joan Crawford’s face in
her wheelchair when
Bette Davis shoves her
down the stairs in
“Whatever Happened to
Baby Jane?” the way
Marilyn Monroe drops
her purse and lets her
lipstick case go skittering
across the floor in the
Bell Tower after Joseph
Cotton strangles her to
death in “Niagara,” the
way Zsa Zsa Gabore
sneers at the men from
Earth in “Queen of the
Universe,” the way
Thelma Ritter slouches
and shambles around her
satanic apartment in
“Rosemary’s Baby,” the
look on Lana Turner’s
face in “Imitation of Life”
when she finds her own
daughter Sandra Dee
in bed with John Gavin,
the look on Barbara
Stanwyck’s face there
in bed doing her campy
hypochondriac routine
frantically on the phone
as she hears somebody
slowly crawling up the
stairs, the look on Vivien
Leigh’s face as she tosses
her keys down from the
window to the young male
hustler in “The Roman
Spring of Mrs. Stone,”
the look on Corey Haines’
face when he realizes his
own brother, Jason Patric,
is a cold-blooded vampire
cocksucker who can fly,
crawl around the ceiling
and who shamelessly
wants to suck off Haim in
the sudsy bathtub on
Saturday Nights Live!
the hysterical look on
Richard Barton’s face
tied up in a hammock
in “Night of the Iguana”
when he can’t get to
the two dancing naked
cute Mexican kept boys
of Ava Gardner, the
shocked disbelieving
but deceptively clever
look on Ann Baxter’s
face when snide George
Sanders devastatingly
reads Eve’s beads in
“All About Eve...”