National Poetry Month: April 9th

Love’s Stratagems by Donald Justice

But these maneuverings to avoid

The touching of hands,

These shifts to keep the eyes employed

On objects more or less neutral

(As honor, for the time being, commands)

Will hardly prevent their downfall.

Stronger medicines are needed.

Already they find

None of their stratagems have succeeded,

Nor would have, no,

Not had their eyes been stricken blind,

Hands cut off at the elbow.

This poem was selected by Lesley W. (Reference Librarian)

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