43 Sonnet

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways:

1. autonomy 2. elective howl 3. showed teeth

4. used the veto 5. with hello 6. a wet economy

7. clothed 8. two-tone 9. elusive 10. the way home

11. at home 12. coveted 13. until we see how 14. hotly

15. steely hot 16. on leave 17. with too much weed

18. two (loosely) 19. dew theme 20. in vacuo 21. the the

22. tentatively we 23. somehow 24. the loud echo

25. the détente 26. touchily 27. a wholesome vow

28. the old way 29. cue the wolves 30. the emotion

31. semidevoutly 32. how we once 33. at the hotel

34. wholesale 35. too mute 36. in the towed Chevy

37. when woe lets me 38. to the void 39. oh acutely

40. sweetly 41. moved out 42. alone 43. with the echo

Copyright © 2019 Caki Wilkinson. This poem originally appeared in Kenyon Review, March/April 2019. Reprinted with permission of the author.