Tulips

BY SYLVIA PLATH

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in.
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anesthetist and my body to surgeons.

Read the rest of Tulips at The Poetry Foundation

Photograph: ‘Tulips’ by Paul Conneally February 2019

Sylvia Plath Bettmann / Getty Images