«Did Beatrice have Dantesque visions? / Did Laura write Petrarchan sonnets: / I’ve taught women to speak, O God — / But how can I teach them silence?»
«Wrung-out insomnias, / Pooled wax at the base / Of a guttering candle, / The morning’s first sound / Of a hundred white bells. / Warm sills under Chernigov moons. / Bees and clover, darkness and dust, / Suffocating heat.»
«Again Chopin’s polonaise is being played, / Oh my God! — how many fans, / And downcast eyes, and tender mouths, / But how close is betrayal, how it rustles. Music’s shadow flickered on the wall, / But did not touch the greenish moonlight. / Oh, how many times I turned cold here / ...»
«Our street is covered in snow; over the / Snow runs the lilac dusk. Passing by, it / Merely glanced in the window and I knew I / Had loved it for a long time. I implored / The lilac dusk: “Visit me a while, stay / With me in my nook, do not dispel my / Old, old grief, share your own wi...»