Plath to Her Scholars

by Joanne Lowery

Girls, aren’t you the ones who under the guise
of “get a life” subsist in universities
with towers of my books piled on your nightstands?
Your unshared beds.
Your color – coded files of notes
about my ted, my bitchy syntax,
the brilliance you will never know.
Keep studying symbiotically and symbolically
how I felt about giraffes,
write a thesis about my favorite vegetable.
My purpose in life was only
metaphors, babies, betrayal, and dissertations.
Surely your apartments have kitchens
with stoves, their oven doors obedient.
You can steal matches from the corner bar.
The dark square, racks removed,
waits for you too.  But I won’t be
available to escort you to literary afterlife,
and my last thought is forever mine.
Girls, if you want to be writers,
close the book on me and write your own.