Sylvia Plath's Birthday

For a Fatherless Son by Sylvia Plath

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.