Virginia Woolf, Summer 1940

Rivers call to me in my sleep, I wake to the last
dying sound of my last name, sputtering, screaming,
sometimes spoken softly down the hall
with the voice of God, not men.

I lie in the bathtub, white dress
floating, conjuring Ophelia
foreseeing Anne, and Sylvia,
newborn skin, wrinkled and raw.

The dress drips for days, hanging
on a rod, unnoticed pools
collecting in a damp
room of my own.

Edges of lace curl,
too many trips to the bath.
It will soon be time to button
myself in for good, give
myself to the running
sound of water, smooth
stones under my fingertips, hair
trailing behind with leaves,
paper, and a sunken pen.

This is another class assignment, to write about an historical character. My fiction class helped a lot with this project: I am grateful to Chris, Samantha, Mark, John and Cody for being early to class and listening to my ramblings about female poets and how to choose the exact right word to describe Virginia's premonition of the deaths of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.