Over Your body the clouds go
High, high and icily
And a little flat, as if they

Floated on a glass that was invisible.
Unlike swans,
Having no reflections;

Unlike You,
With no strings attached.
All cool, all blue. Unlike You

You, there on Your back,
Eyes to the sky.
The spider-man have caught You.

Winding and twining their petty fetters,
Their bribes-
So many silks.

How they hate You.
They conserve in the valley of Your fingers, they are inchworms.
They would have You sleep in their cabinets,

This toe, and that toe, a relic.
Step off!
Step off seven leagues, like those distances

That revolve in Crivelli, untouchable.
Let this eye be an eagle
The shadow of this lip, an abyss.

~ Sylvia Plath