THREE POEMS by
Denise Levertov
GIFTS
I want to give away the warm coat
I bought but found
cold and ungainly.
A man's wife will wear it,
and in exchange the man will tear
an ugly porch off an old empty house,
leave it the way it was,
bare and sightly.
ADAM'S COMPLAINT
Some people,
no matter what you give them,
still
want the moon.
The bread,
the
salt,
white meat and dark,
still hungry.
The marriage bed
and the cradle,
still
empty
anTIS.
You give them land,
their own earth under their feet,
still
they take to the roads.
And water: dig them the deepest well,
still it's not deep enough
to drink the moon from.
