Milk and Bread
Alessandra Bava

I gave birth to poetry
and to you with
distant eyes -- in order
not to love too much
your tiny hands that
would not write yet.

I left you in the arms
of February winds --
a window flung open,
two mugs of milk and
some bread on a dish
at your bedside.


(Sylvia Plath's farewell to Frieda and Nicholas.
Early morning February 11, 1963.)

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