In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root.
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich.
I could hardly speak.
Plath laments that she could never talk to her father, because her tongue was always stuck. She continues to say that the area where her tongue got stuck was like a barbed wire snare. Perhaps her father made her nervous or scared, or she’s not great at speaking German. She continues to proclaim that her tongue got stuck so bad that she could only stammer “Ich, ich, ich,” which is the German word for “I.” 
 
 Barbed wire would rip a tongue to shreds
Daddy