How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
This poem is in the public domain.
You did say, need me less and I'll want you more. I'm still shellshocked at needing anyone, used to being used to it on my own. It won't be me out on the tiles till four- thirty, while you're in bed, willing the door open with your need. You wanted her then, more. Because you need to, I woke alone in what's not yet our room, strewn, though, with your guitar, shoes, notebook, socks, trousers enjambed with mine. Half the world was sleeping it off in every other bed under my roof. I wish I had a roof over my bed to pull down on my head when I feel damned by wanting you so much it looks like need.
From Love, Death, and the Changing of the Seasons (New York: Arbor House, 1986). Copyright © 1986 by Marilyn Hacker. Reprinted with the permission of Frances Collin Literary Agency. All rights reserved.
I love you
because the Earth turns round the sun
because the North wind blows north
sometimes
because the Pope is Catholic
and most Rabbis Jewish
because the winters flow into springs
and the air clears after a storm
because only my love for you
despite the charms of gravity
keeps me from falling off this Earth
into another dimension
I love you
because it is the natural order of things
I love you
like the habit I picked up in college
of sleeping through lectures
or saying I’m sorry
when I get stopped for speeding
because I drink a glass of water
in the morning
and chain-smoke cigarettes
all through the day
because I take my coffee Black
and my milk with chocolate
because you keep my feet warm
though my life a mess
I love you
because I don’t want it
any other way
I am helpless
in my love for you
It makes me so happy
to hear you call my name
I am amazed you can resist
locking me in an echo chamber
where your voice reverberates
through the four walls
sending me into spasmatic ecstasy
I love you
because it’s been so good
for so long
that if I didn’t love you
I’d have to be born again
and that is not a theological statement
I am pitiful in my love for you
The Dells tell me Love
is so simple
the thought though of you
sends indescribably delicious multitudinous
thrills throughout and through-in my body
I love you
because no two snowflakes are alike
and it is possible
if you stand tippy-toe
to walk between the raindrops
I love you
because I am afraid of the dark
and can’t sleep in the light
because I rub my eyes
when I wake up in the morning
and find you there
because you with all your magic powers were
determined that
I should love you
because there was nothing for you but that
I would love you
I love you
because you made me
want to love you
more than I love my privacy
my freedom my commitments
and responsibilities
I love you ’cause I changed my life
to love you
because you saw me one Friday
afternoon and decided that I would
love you
I love you I love you I love you
“Resignation” from The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1968–1998 by Nikki Giovanni. Copyright compilation © 2003 by Nikki Giovanni. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
Love me stupid.
Love me terrible.
And when I am no
mountain but rather
a monsoon of imperfect
thunder love me. When
I am blue in my face
from swallowing myself
yet wearing my best heart
even if my best heart
is a century of hunger
an angry mule breathing
hard or perhaps even
hopeful. A small sun.
Little & bright.
Copyright © 2019 by Anis Mojgani. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 14, 2019, by the Academy of American Poets.
Maybe it’s easier, having been named
after someone: nobody
expects that you’ll rule the underworld
or judge the dead, but
they call you Pluto anyway. Planet, too.
I know a girl like you
who used to be a thing she isn’t anymore
but hasn’t changed at all.
Whose orbit didn’t circle straight—whose
size & distance never quite
seemed right—but no one cared til now.
I was a woman once:
rounded by my own gravity, cat-called
into hades by men who
could not see this gem of a hard rock
was not made magnetic
for the likes of them. Hey little mama—
don’t take it so hard.
So we are frigid. So we stay relegated
out here with our kin.
I’ll wear my fade tight & my tie loose
if you play your radio loud.
They say we’re known only in comparison
to that which surrounds
us, so I’d guess they’ll hear our signal soon.
I was a woman once,
but that’s not the farthest thing from the sun
another universe might’ve
let me be: another universe might’ve let us be.
Originally printed in The South Carolina Review. Copyright © 2017 by Meg Day. Used with the permission of the author.