Peeling Onions – Adrienne Rich

Only to have a grief equal to all these tears!   There’s not a sob in my chest. Dry-hearted as Peer Gynt   I pare away, no hero, merely a cook.   Crying was labor, once when I’d good cause. Walking, I felt my eyes like wounds raw in my head, so postal-clerks, I thought, must stare. A dog’s look, a cat’s, burnt to my…

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Tonight No Poetry Will Serve – Adrienne Rich

Saw you walking barefoot taking a long look at the new moon’s eyelid later spread sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair asleep but not oblivious of the unslept unsleeping elsewhere Tonight I think no poetry will serve Syntax of rendition: verb pilots the plane adverb modifies action verb force-feeds noun submerges the subject noun is choking verb disgraced goes on doing there are adjectives up for sale…

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