With you, my heart is quiet here,
And all my thoughts are cool as rain.
I sit and let the shifting year
Go by before the window-pane,
And reach my hand to yours, my dear . . .
I wonder what it’s like in Spain.

From Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926) by Dorothy Parker. This poem is in the public domain.

It’s neither red
nor sweet.
It doesn’t melt
or turn over,
break or harden,
so it can’t feel
pain,
yearning,
regret.

It doesn’t have 
a tip to spin on,
it isn’t even
shapely—
just a thick clutch
of muscle,
lopsided,
mute. Still,
I feel it inside
its cage sounding
a dull tattoo:
I want, I want—

but I can’t open it:
there’s no key.
I can’t wear it
on my sleeve,
or tell you from
the bottom of it
how I feel. Here,
it’s all yours, now—
but you’ll have
to take me,
too.

Copyright © 2017 Rita Dove. Used with permission of the author.