St. Peters North Tawton

—for Sylvia Plath

Unloosing their leafless limbs—

Year after year to no purpose

The flood of traffic goes by daily

The tombstones lean sideways—

And backwards and forwards

Morgue between Devon and death

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes—

Once lived here at Court Green

Now they’re just bald mannequins

The blood jet that’s poetry—

It spurts and spurts and spurts

And then it stops and dries up