And let her loves, when she is dead,

     Write this above her bones:

“No more she lives to give us bread

     Who asked her only stones.”

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

I don’t want to see

what spilled out,

blue clay jug of dreams

toppled at the head of his pallet

found at dawn,

every drop of future

gone. 

 

Copyright © 2022 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used with permission of the author.