Recently I took Sylvia Plath on holiday to Antigua.

We were barely acquainted

but I felt it was time to get to know each other better.

 

We could have met forty years ago but I shied away

and she did not force herself

though she moved in and lived in my spare room

the one with the old books unread and dusty.

 

Once or twice as the years passed she came into my room

late at night, dark when I was drunk

but we never got between the covers

- she wanted more of me than I could give her

and what she offered I was too immature to make much of.

We could have explored things together

played sensual games and delved between our thighs

of understanding all night long

but too young in heart I withdrew on first entry –

a virgin boy untaught in her dark arts

unlearned in the sensuous pain of her clutching verse

I could not get beyond a painful penetration that lasted less than a stanza

and finished abruptly in premature incomprehension.

Rejected she shrank back into shadows of her own making

and closed the bedroom door.

 

And then just last week I asked her to join me

Come to Antigua with me Plath, I begged:

An island paradise and blue water might loosen us up.

We could fold your covers back under a tropical moon

and with my hands humidly sticky I could caress you by the pool;

and walk with you ostentatiously

and show you off

you can be my new woman and I’ll be your new man.

 

She came with me. My guest.

She stayed hidden in our room for the first few days

and then I made her walk with me in sunlight.

And at night or in a shady corner

I touched her

I opened her

I absorbed her

I caressed her

I gave her my time

and my mind

and my humid hand

and my romantic heart

 

But she turned me down.

She told me I did not understand her

and never would.

I was not to take offence – it was not my fault

these things happen.

I was nice enough

but on reflection just not her type.

 

So she will remain my dark lady

my mystery lady

too grand for me -

too articulate  to entertain me.

 

I might leave her here in Antigua.

She thinks that would be best.

She can stay on in my room and see if

another lover of books,

one on a higher mental plain,

will be ready for her

and take her home in his baggage.

 

If she can wait that long…

 

Because there is always a danger that some bleak part of her

will do something foolish.

But that’s another verse

as yet un-read.