Barren Woman

by Sylvia Plath

Empty, I echo to the least footfall, Museum without statues, grand with pillars, porticoes, rotundas. In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks back into itself, Nun-hearted and blind to the world. Marble lilies Exhale their pallor like scent. I imagine myself with a great public, Mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos. Insread, the dead injure me attentions, and nothing can happen. Blank-faced and mum as a nurse.