A Necessary Waist: Plath Grows Thinner Reading Stein

				
					...what is the current that presents a long line
					and a necessary waist
										Gertrude Stein
				

1. The outside pressing in like a red lake, 

causing a narrowing of her.

Will there be room for everything/everyone inside? 


2. Because also inside her: a rope and a map:

rope of intestines, marking the equator of her

like the belt of a shirtwaist dress, 

map of her mother’s face, 

every line and malignant flap of skin.


3. A recording like a tapeworm: do not return to this

and 

this is everything, everything 

you don’t want to be.

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Listen to a reading of the poem.