That Saturday
when they pulled your teeth,
he came at nine,
the smoker, the drinker,
the one with hard black pebbles
for eyes.
Your aim? To ******, to thrill,
the American ******
with daffodil hair.
Out from the rain and into a bar,
dialogue on birthdays
and becoming old.
A speck of seriousness,
your mood, spiked,
each 'conquest' you called it
so fabulous,
always this way;
you knew it would be.
Hand on waist,
you gasped for air
as if drowning in ginger ale,
one kiss,
light as a feather,
the first.
Positive,
it's only physical,
this lovely magnetism
but his burning voice
you clung to
like a thin cigarette.
Past fuzzy lights,
through a summer shower
that fell faster and faster,
just like that, another one gone,
another name
maybe thinking of you.
Written: July 2013 and April 2014.
Explanation: A poem written in my own time, and another one that could be part of my third-year university dissertation concerning Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. This poem describes an event documented in Plath's collected journals - in August of 1950 (aged 17 at the time), Plath went on a date one Saturday (having had some wisdom teeth removed earlier on) with a boy named Emile. The two went dancing at Ten Acres, a former roadside dance hall in Wayland, Massachusetts (it is now a Jewish reform congregation site.) Despite searching, no more detailed information about Emile has been found.