Denise Levertov Poems

My wedding-ring lies in a basket
as if at the bottom of a well.
Nothing will come to fish it back up
and onto my finger again.
...

An old man whose black face
shines golden-brown as wet pebbles
under the streetlamp, is walking two mongrel dogs of dis-
proportionate size, in the rain,
...

Rose Red's hair is brown as fur
and shines in firelight as she prepares
supper of honey and apples, curds and whey,
for the bear, and leaves it ready
...

The ache of marriage:

thigh and tongue, beloved,
are heavy with it,
...

Something is very gently,
invisibly, silently,
pulling at me-a thread
or net of threads
...

Down through the tomb's inward arch
He has shouldered out into Limbo
to gather them, dazed, from dreamless slumber:
the merciful dead, the prophets,
...

There's in my mind a woman
of innocence, unadorned but

fair-featured and smelling of
...

iiGloria

Praise the wet snow
falling early.
...

A night that cuts between you and you
and you and you and you
and me : jostles us apart, a man elbowing
through a crowd.          We won't
...