Poetry in Motion
New York
Parlour-Piece
Ted Hughes
Parlour-Piece
With love so like fire they dared not
Let it out into strawy small talk;
With love so like a flood they dared not
Let out a trickle lest the whole crack,
These two sat speechlessly;
Pale cool tea in tea-cups chaperoned
Stillness, silence, the eyes
Where fire and flood strained.
"Parlour-Piece" from Collected Poems by Ted Hughes.
Copyright © 2003 The Estate of Ted Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
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