Poet's Choice

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips' red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound.

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Crazier than shirttails in the wind, bored by "false compare," both poets also like the refreshing simplicity of words such as "shiny" for the sea and "go" for how a goddess moves.

(Kenneth Koch's poem "To You" can be found in "Kenneth Koch: Selected Poems," edited by Ron Padgett. Library of America. Copyright 1998 by Kenneth Koch and copyright 2005 by the Kenneth Koch Literary Estate.)