For a Fatherless Son by Sylvia Plath
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![For a Fatherless Son by Sylvia Plath For a Fatherless Son by Sylvia Plath](https://www.artvilla.com/wp-content/uploads/2005/02/For-a-Fatherless-Son-by-Sylvia-Plath-300x195.png)
For a Fatherless Son
You will be aware of an absence, presently,
Growing beside you, like a tree,
A death tree, color gone, an Australian gum tree ---
Balding, gelded by lightning--an illusion,
And a sky like a pig's backside, an utter lack of attention.
But right now you are dumb.
And I love your stupidity,
The blind mirror of it. I look in
And find no face but my own, and you think that's funny.
It is good for me
To have you grab my nose, a ladder rung.
One day you may touch what's wrong ---
The small skulls, the smashed blue hills, the godawful hush.
Till then your smiles are found money.
***
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Sylvia Plath Poems