Pablo Neruda   |   Jane Cooper   |   Lord Byron   |   e. e. cummings   |   Alberto Rios   |   James Whitcomb Riley   |   Carl Sandburg   |   Galway Kinnell   |   Elizabeth Akers Allen   |   Li-Young Lee   |   Margaret Atwood   |   Theodore Roethke   |   Madison Julius Cawein   |   Adrienne Rich   |   Matthew Arnold   |   Michael Stephens   |   Note From The Designer   |   home
Jane Cooper
Rent

If you want my apartment, sleep in it
but let's have a clear understanding:
the books are still free agents.

If the rocking chair's arms surround you
they can also let you go,
they can shape the air like a body.

I don't want your rent, I want
a radiance of attention
like the candle's flame when we eat,

I mean a kind of awe
attending the spaces between us-
Not a roof but a field of stars.