Heart to Heart

It's neither red

nor sweet.

It doesn't melt

or turn over,

break or harden,

so it can't feel

pain,

yearning,

regret.

It doesn't have

a tip to spin on,

it isn't even

shapely—

just a thick clutch

of muscle,

lopsided,

mute. Still,

I feel it inside

its cage sounding

a dull tattoo:

I want, I want—

but I can't open it:

there's no key.

I can't wear it

on my sleeve,

or tell you from

the bottom of it

how I feel. Here,

it's all yours, now—

but you'll have

to take me,

too.

Rita Dove

is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, author, and former U.S. Poet Laureate (1993–1995). Her acclaimed works span poetry, fiction, drama, and essays, including Thomas and Beulah, Collected Poems 1974–2004, and Playlist for the Apocalypse.

Dove has received the National Humanities Medal, the National Medal of Arts, and numerous literary honors, including the Wallace Stevens Award and the Gold Medal for Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The only poet to receive both the National Humanities and National Arts Medals, she has been awarded 29 honorary doctorates. A professor at the University of Virginia, she continues to shape contemporary literature through her writing and scholarship.