Academy of American Poets
View Cart | Log In 
Subscribe | More Info 
Find a Poet or Poem
Advanced Search >
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jane Cooper
Jane Cooper
Jane Cooper was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1924. She...
More >
FURTHER READING
Related Prose
Eros and the Lyric Imagination: Poems of Love
by Marilyn Hacker
Adopt a Poet | Add to Notebook | E-mail to Friend | Print
Rent  
by Jane Cooper
Get Flash Player

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.



Share Digg StumbleUpon Facebook E-mail to Friend


Audio Clip
December 15, 1997
92nd St. Y, Unterberg Poetry Center
From the Academy Audio Archive



From Scaffolding: Selected Poems by Jane Cooper, published by Tilbury House, Publishers. Copyright © 1993 Jane Cooper. Used with permission.
Larger TypeLarger Type | Home | Help | Contact Us | Privacy Policy Copyright © 1997 - 2012 by Academy of American Poets.