somethingdarker | Potential Titles: Rita Dove

I clutch at the ragged holes they leave behind - Rita Dove "Adolescence II"

A soldier is smoke waiting for wind - Rita Dove "Alfonzo Prepares to Go Over the Top"

A long corridor clanging to the back of a house - Rita Dove "Alfonzo Prepares to Go Over the Top"

Where a child sings in its ruined nursery - Rita Dove "Alfonzo Prepares to Go Over the Top"

Something romantic but requiring restraint - Rita Dove "American Smooth"

Before the earth remembered who we were - Rita Dove "American Smooth"

Tossed off in a shudder of brushed steel - Rita Dove "The Bistro Styx"

Faintly futuristic landscapes strewn with carwrecks - Rita Dove "The Bistro Styx"

Insubstantial, a lipstick ghost on tissue - Rita Dove "The Bistro Styx"

Wobbling skyward in an ecstatic oracular spiral - Rita Dove "The Bistro Styx"

Once the symptoms start to make sense - Rita Dove "Borderline Mambo"

Before they can decode the message sent to the cells - Rita Dove "Borderline Mambo"

As if we didn't like secrets - Rita Dove "Borderline Mambo"

Standing on the bitter ridge of France - Rita Dove "La Chapelle. 92nd Division. Ted."

Stunned lavenders and pinks dusted with soot - Rita Dove "La Chapelle. 92nd Division. Ted."

Across the great bruised heart of the South - Rita Dove "Crossing State Lines [Shirtsleeved afternoons]" [excerpt]

Scatter a few bright, weary wisps - Rita Dove "Crossing State Lines [Shirtsleeved afternoons]" [excerpt]

Drifts down the pond's moon-sparked highway - Rita Dove "Crossing State Lines [Shirtsleeved afternoons]" [excerpt]

Drink to the star-drenched latitudes - Rita Dove "Crossing State Lines [Shirtsleeved afternoons]" [excerpt]

Wake up with a second chance - Rita Dove "Dawn Revisited"

Blown open to a blank page - Rita Dove "Dawn Revisited"

To match the field they thought they were playing on - Rita Dove "Family Reunion"

Resurrecting the food we've abandoned along the way - Rita Dove "Family Reunion"

The beautiful geometry of Mendel's peas and their grim logic - Rita Dove "Family Reunion"

Fit to sally forth and trample each plopped heart - Rita Dove "Girls On the Town, 1946"

Ripped from the dreams none of you believe - Rita Dove "Girls On the Town, 1946"

Stone gargoyles leering and brocade drapes licked with fire - Rita Dove "Hades' Pitch"

Your eyes seeking your name - Rita Dove "Happenstance"

Gardenias scaling her left sleeve in a spasm of scent - Rita Dove "Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove"

Poised, between husbands and factions - Rita Dove "Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove"

Walk into that flower-smothered standing ovation - Rita Dove "Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove"

Inside its cage sounding a dull tattoo - Rita Dove "Heart to Heart"

But you'll have to take me, too - Rita Dove "Heart to Heart"

Saddles tooled with singular stars - Rita Dove "Horse and Tree"

Why children might fear a carousel - Rita Dove "Horse and Tree"

Morning bells stuck on snooze - Rita Dove "Incantation of the First Order"

Discarded my smile but not my teeth - Rita Dove "Incantation of the First Order"

Sunshine waxing the freckled curves of a pear - Rita Dove "Insomnia Etiquette"

Moving through the dark while the world sleeps on - Rita Dove "Insomnia Etiquette"

The weird glee of finding my way without incident - Rita Dove "Insomnia Etiquette"

All those years I could get lost in anything - Rita Dove "Insomnia Etiquette"

Behind enemy lines with no maps, no matches - Rita Dove "Insomnia Etiquette"

This is how one foot sinks into the ground - Rita Dove "Persephone, Falling"

Trembling along its axis - Rita Dove "Prose in a Small Space"

Shape themselves around that one bright seizure - Rita Dove "Prose in a Small Space"

Left out, banging at the gates - Rita Dove "Prose in a Small Space"

Broke the water into a thousand needles - Rita Dove "Someone's Blood"

Playing my tunes all by myself - Rita Dove "The Spring Cricket Considers the Question of Negritude"

Slipped and started up again - Rita Dove "The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude"

Climbed to be climbing, sang to be singing - Rita Dove "The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude"

No one bothered to analyze our blues - Rita Dove "The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude"

All wisdom is afterthought, a sort of helpless relief - Rita Dove "The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude"

Don't go thinking none of this grief belongs to you - Rita Dove "The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude"

Even if you don't know how it feels to fall - Rita Dove "The Spring Cricket Repudiates His Parable of Negritude"

Now that the wheel has broken - Rita Dove "Testimony: 1968"

Grief is the constant - Rita Dove "Testimony: 1968"

Hope: the last word spoken - Rita Dove "Testimony: 1968"

All manner of allegations, bold claims and public lies - Rita Dove "Trans-"

When he fades, the world teeters - Rita Dove "Trans-"

When she burgeons, crime blossoms - Rita Dove "Trans-"

How the operatic impulse wavers - Rita Dove "Trans-"

Dip deep, my darling, into the blank pool - Rita Dove "Trans-"

This is the house that music built - Rita Dove "Transit"

Each note a fingertip's purchase - Rita Dove "Transit"

Laddering across the unspeakable world - Rita Dove "Transit"

Composed to soothe regiments of eyes - Rita Dove "Transit"

We supped instead each night on Chopin - Rita Dove "Transit"

Hummed our grief-soaked lullabies to the rapture - Rita Dove "Transit"

While in the midst of horror we fed on beauty - Rita Dove "Transit"

Vigilant, weary, exposed to the elements - Rita Dove "Trayvon, Redux"

When all's not right but no one sees it - Rita Dove "Trayvon, Redux"

Here's a fine basket of riddles - Rita Dove "Trayvon, Redux"

Which is news fit to write home about? - Rita Dove "Trayvon, Redux"

Soon we shall be summoned to the gate - Rita Dove "Vacation"

Ragtag nuclear families with their cooing and bickering - Rita Dove "Vacation"

The lone executive who has wandered this far into summer - Rita Dove "Vacation"

Poet's page at poets.org.

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