American Life in Poetry: “Scarf”
July 7, 2022 Updated Fri., July 8, 2022 at 3:27 p.m.
By Kwame Dawes
In her poem, “Scarf”, Rita Dove, with inimitable delicacy, efficiency and grace, captures something of the way in which our sensate bodies are often the true legislators of beauty. Here, the sense of touch is celebrated through a beautiful image that evokes just how much our need to feel is as essential as breathing.
Scarf
Whoever claims beauty
lies in the eye
of the beholder
has forgotten the music
silk makes settling
across a bared
neck: skin never touched
so gently except
by a child
or a lover.
Poem copyright 2021 by Rita Dove, “Scarf” from Playlist for the Apocalypse. Poem reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. American Life in Poetry is made possible by the Poetry Foundation and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We do not accept unsolicited submissions.
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