Lady Lazarus

One year in every ten
 A sort of walking miracle, my skin
 Bright as a Nazi lampshade
 My face a featureless, fine
 The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
 The grave cave ate will be
 And I a smiling woman
 And like the cat I have nine times to die
 To annihilate each decade
 What a million filaments
 The peanut-crunching crowd
 Them unwrap me hand and foot--
 I may be skin and bone
 Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman
 The first time it happened I was ten
 The second time I meant
 To last it out and not come back at all
 They had to call and call
 And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls
 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
 Comeback in broad day
 To the same place, the same face, the same brute
 For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
 For the hearing of my heart--
 And there is a charge, a very large charge
 For a word or a touch
 Or a piece of my hair or my clothes
 That melts to a shriek
 Do not think I underestimate your great concern
 Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
 Herr God, Herr Lucifer
 I rise with my red hair
 And I eat men like air