from crush and splinter
death in the market
jeering robotic
dryice disrupt
to conjure mercy’s
perishing
persistent script
blotted smeared
and torn
let hair, nail-cuttings
nourish the vine and fig-tree
let man, woman
eat, be sheltered
Marx the physician laid his ear
over the heartbeat
pressed the belly
diagnosed the pain
but did not write
of lips roaming damp skin
hand plunged in hair
bed-laughter
common luxuries
left us to name
what we light with the coalspark
living instantly in us
and to continue
(“Poetry isn’t easy to come by. You have to write it like you owe a debt to the world. In that way poetry
is how the world comes to be in you.” — Alan Davies, The Poetry Project Newsletter, No. 203, April/May 2005, p. 25)
© Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich is the author of more than sixteen volumes of poetry and four nonfiction prose books. She is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, including a MacArthur Fellowship and the 1999 Lannan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.