Tonight No Poetry Will Serve

By Adrienne Rich

Saw you walking barefoot
taking a long look
at the new moon's eyelid

later spread
sleep-fallen, naked in your dark hair
asleep but not oblivious
of the unslept unsleeping
elsewhere

Tonight I think
no poetry
will serve

Syntax of rendition:

verb pilots the plane
adverb modifies action

verb force-feeds noun
submerges the subject
noun is choking
verb disgraced goes on doing

now diagram the sentence

Credits

"Tonight No Poetry Will Serve." Copyright © 2016 by the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust. Copyright (c) 2011 by Adrienne Rich, from COLLECTED POEMS: 1950--2012 by Adrienne Rich. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.