Sweetheart
when you break thru
you’ll find
a poet here
not quite what one would choose.

I won’t promise
you’ll never go hungry
or that you won’t be sad
on this gutted
breaking
globe

but I can show you
baby
enough to love
to break your heart
forever

From Pieces of a Song: Selected Poems (City Lights Publishers, 1990). Copyright © 1990 Diane di Prima. Used with permission of Sheppard Powell.