Lady Lazarus

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
 
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
 
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
 
Peel off the napkin
0 my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
 
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
 
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
 
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
 
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
 
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
 
Them unwrap me hand and foot
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
 
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
 
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
 
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
 
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
 
Dying
Is an art, like everything else,
I do it exceptionally well.
 
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
 
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
 
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
 
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
 
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
 
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
 
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
 
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
 
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
 
Ash, ash --
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
 
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
 
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
 
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.