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
O 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