MY COOKOUT WITH SYLVIA PLATH

My cookout with Sylvia Plath
should have been a thrill,
but she kept sticking her head in the gas grill
and yelling, "Hey could you turn it up, pal!"
(What a gal.)

And while the hamburgers were cooking
and she thought nobody was looking,
she swilled down all the charcoal lighter fluid.

I told her -- "Look, life's no picnic for any of us,"
but she kept pulling that Lady Lazarus routine on me.
"Yeah, well then what's in all those baskets? she asked.
"Did I say baskets? I meant caskets."

I offered her some fresh cucumbers
but she kept saying that dying is an art
and she was just painting by the numbers.

I tried to encourage her to play horse shoes
but she said she didn't understand the rules
and stumbled off to try and drown herself in the pool.
Ringer!

I said --"Why don't you lie in the hammock for a while,"
but she just smiled her dead smile of accomplishment --
(All I ever asked her to do was bring the condiments.)

I offered her corn-on-the cob,
thinking, maybe a good hot meal might keep her alive,
but not for long,
pretty soon she was trying to slash her wrists
with one of the plastic knives.

Finally, she took a cool glass of lemonade
which I thought might calm her down,
but she insisted on making a toast --
-- "Here's to all the clowns who ever had to kill their father!"
and then tried to impale herself

on one of the croquet posts.

After a time, she wandered off
and we heard her screaming
out of sight,
trying to hang herself,
with the twine of one of the high flying kites.

You can love this world as much as you want,
as much as you can,
and there is so much in it
that you'll never understand,
so much you'll never know anything about,
but one thing is for sure -- Never! (and I mean never)
invite a suicide to a cookout.