A challenge against the Valentine’s Day version of the heart
Learning Objective: Students will analyze a poem’s use of figurative language, then apply similar techniques in their own writing using the poem as a mentor text.
It’s neither red
nor sweet.
It doesn’t melt
or turn over,
break or harden,
so it can’t feel
pain,
yearning,
regret.
It doesn’t have
a tip to spin on,
it isn’t even
shapely—
just a thick clutch
of muscle,
lopsided,
mute. Still,
I feel it inside
its cage sounding
a dull tattoo:
I want, I want—
but I can’t open it:
there’s no key.
I can’t wear it
on my sleeve,
or tell you from
the bottom of it
how I feel. Here,
it’s all yours, now—
but you’ll have
to take me,
too.
Excerpted from American Smooth: Poems. Copyright ©2004 by Rita Dove. Used with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
Writing Prompt
Choose a common idiom that involves a body part (“butterflies in my stomach,” “cold feet,” “a lump in my throat,” . . .). What does the phrase usually suggest? Is it accurate? Rewrite it in a way that challenges or reimagines its usual meaning, as Dove does.
This article was originally published in the February 2026 issue.
