Cut

By Sylvia Plath

What a thrill -

My thumb instead of an onion.

The top quite gone

Except for a sort of hinge

Of skin,

A flap like a hat,

Dead white.

Then that red plush.

Little pilgrim,

The Indian's axed your scalp.

Your turkey wattle

Carpet rolls

Straight from the heart.

I step on it,

Clutching my bottle

Of pink fizz.  A celebration, this is.

Out of a gap

A million soldiers run,

Redcoats, every one.

Whose side are they on?

O my

Homunculus, I am ill.

I have taken a pill to kill

The thin

Papery feeling.

Saboteur,

Kamikaze man -

The stain on your

Gauze Ku Klux Klan

Babushka

Darkens and tarnishes and when

The balled

Pulp of your heart

Confronts its small

Mill of silence

How you jump -

Trepanned veteran,

Dirty girl,

Thumb stump.