Bill Knott: Sonnet
The way the world is not
astonished at you
it doesn’t blink a leaf
when we step from the house
Mary Jane White: Friend, You Count Yourself Faithless,
…the Sea and all her ships
are women you are too certain of —
who would not marry you for love.
Carolyne Wright: Two Poems from ‘Masquerade’
These coastal nights in candle-flickering dark
I ride you easy, bare-backed and bare-breasted,
your sex straight up inside me like a second
spine.
Mary Jane White: “For You” by Marina Tsvetaeva
For you, I dissolve a handful of
Burnt hair in the glass.
So you will not eat, not sing,
Not drink, not sleep.
Meleager: A Garland of Love Poems
Ah, little archer, so you thought
to hide from me there
in Zenophila’s eyes!
Edna St. Vincent Millay: When you, that at this moment are to me
When you, that at this moment are to me
Dearer than words on paper, shall depart,
And be no more the warder of my heart…
Jessica Temple: A Study of Conjugation in Medias Res
And suddenly I wonder exactly how many times this had to happen
for both of us to be exactly here, exactly now.
Mary Jane White: Friend, Tell Me, What Can I Know
…always the sun failed again
for the evening, and the short grass fell dull
in the shadows, out of the slant-light.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Godwit Beach
Remember? It was late in the afternoon,
we walked a while along these limestone cliffs,
under the silver ghosts of eucalyptus trees.
Chard deNiord: I Was Swimming
I was swimming with you in a river
that was both rushing and still.
Remember?
Mary Jane White: Why, Friend, With Surprise and Awe
I weep easily and often
now for the world.
Michael Simms: Only You
I woke this morning remembering the room we had in Paris which looked out on the Seine.
Lisel Mueller: Alive Together
Speaking of marvels, I am alive
together with you, when I might have been
alive with anyone under the sun
