Weekly Poem: 'Chocolate'

*In celebration of Valentine's Day on Tuesday, a poem by [Rita Dove](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec11/ritadove_12-16.html).*
**Chocolate**

Velvet fruit, exquisite square
I hold up to sniff
between finger and thumb---

how you numb me
with your rich attentions!
If I don't eat you quickly,

you'll melt in my palm.
Pleasure seeker, if I let you
you'd liquefy everywhere.

Knotted smoke, dark punch
of earth and night and leaf,
for a taste of you

any woman would gladly
crumble to ruin.
Enough chatter: I am ready

to fall in love!


From "American Smooth" by [Rita Dove](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/rita-dove), published by W. W. Norton & Company 2004. Dove served as the U.S Poet Laureate from 1993-1995, and for the past two decades she has taught at the University of Virginia. Watch our recent conversation with her [here.](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec11/ritadove_12-16.html) From a few years ago, [here's our Valentine's Day piece](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june07/lovepoetry_02-14.html) with poets and married couple Mary Jo Salter and Brad Leithauser.