Ted Hughes
Billet-Doux
Here is the magniloquent truth -
His twelve bright brass bands
Diverted down mouseholes -
Walking the town with his head high
And naked as his breath.

I have looked far enough
If now I have found one who does
Not - hold that 'not' to the light -,
When I walk about in my blood and the air
Beside her, sweeten smiles, peep, cough,

Who sees straight through bogeyman,
The crammed cafés, the ten thousand
Books packed end to end, even my gross bulk,
To the firey star coming for the eye itself,
And while she can grabs of them what she can.

Love you I do not say I do or might either.
I come to you enforcedly -
Love's a spoiled appetite for some delicacy -
I am driven to your bed and four walls
From bottomlessly breaking night -

If, dispropertied as I am
By the constellations staring me to less
Than what cold, rain and wind neglect,
I do not hold you closer and harder than love
By a desperation, show me no home.