The Letter poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry

Little cramped words scrawling all over

the paper

Like draggled fly’s legs,

What can you tell of the flaring moon

Through the oak leaves?

Or of my uncertain window and the

bare floor

Spattered with moonlight?

Your silly quirks and twists have nothing

in them

Of blossoming hawthorns,

And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth,

virgin of loveliness

Beneath my hand.

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart

against

The want of you;

Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,

And posting it.

And I scald alone, here, under the fire

Of the great moon.