Blank and True

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We mask such starkness each day,

Disguising constant guilt

Of the many coloured troll.

Dryly disclaiming that revolted eden,

But scrupulously reflecting the public grin,

Pretending to maintain such rightful ablution,

Yet the ego is caught raw;

Rueful, the mere name denies them,

Until absolute fact is definitely gone

Under striking assault. 

‘Blank and True’ is an erasure poem using as the source text ‘Tale of a Tub’ by Sylvia Plath, published in ‘Sylvia Plath: Collected Poems’, Faber and Faber, 1981.