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Valentine's Day

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  • Poem

    The Best Slow Dancer

    By David Wagoner
    Under the sagging clotheslines of crepe paper
    By the second string of teachers and wallflowers
    In the school gym across the key through the glitter   
    Of mirrored light three-second rule forever   
    Suspended you danced with her the best slow dancer   
    Who stood on tiptoe who...
  • Poem

    from The Book of Funnels

    By Christian Hawkey
    Fräulein, can you





                          sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I drag my sleeping bag
    into the meadow’s precise center
    & crawl inside, head first. Fräulein, there is the stars’
    ceaseless drilling. I close my eyes. Somewhere below me
    a star-nosed mole cuts its webbed hand
    on...
  • Poem

    Romance

    By Claude McKay
    To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
    Scented and warm against my beating breast;

    To whisper soft and quivering your name,
    And drink the passion burning in your frame;

    To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
    And tease your mouth...
  • Poem

    Double Doors

    By Richard Jones
    Valentine’s Day breakfast at Baker’s Square:
    Laura drinks coffee while I watch Andrew,
    who refuses to sit but chooses instead
    to stay in the restaurant’s vestibule where
    he opens and closes the big double doors
    over and over again, as if he’s practicing
    a grand entrance–entering,...
  • Poem

    A Red, Red Rose

    By Robert Burns
    O my Luve is like a red, red rose
       That’s newly sprung in June;
    O my Luve is like the melody
       That’s sweetly played in tune.

    So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
       So deep in luve am I;...
  • Poem

    Lunchbox Love Note

    By Kenn Nesbitt
    Inside my lunch
    to my surprise
    a perfect heart-shaped
    love note lies.

    The outside says,
    “Will you be mine?”
    and, “Will you be
    my valentine?”

    I take it out
    and wonder who
    would want to tell me
    “I love you.”

    Perhaps a girl
    who’s much too shy
    to hand it to me
    eye to eye.

    Or...
  • Poem

    Altruism

    By Molly Peacock
    What if we got outside ourselves and there   
    really was an outside out there, not just   
    our insides turned inside out? What if there   
    really were a you beyond me, not just   
    the waves off my own fire, like those waves off   
    the backyard grill...
  • Poem

    I Knew a Woman

    By Theodore Roethke
    I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
    When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;   
    Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:   
    The shapes a bright container can contain!
    Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
    Or English...
  • Poem

    “Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art”

    By John Keats
    Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
             Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
    And watching, with eternal lids apart,
             Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
    The moving waters at their priestlike task
             Of pure ablution round earth's...
  • Poem

    A Maul for Bill and Cindy’s Wedding

    By Gary Snyder
    Swung from the toes out,
    Belly-breath riding on the knuckles,   
    The ten-pound maul lifts up,
    Sails in an arc overhead,
    And then lifts you!

    It floats, you float,
    For an instant of clear far sight—
    Eye on the crack in the end-grain   
    Angle of the oak round
    Stood up...
  • Poem

    First turn to me. . . .

    By Bernadette Mayer
    First turn to me after a shower,
    you come inside me sideways as always

    in the morning you ask me to be on top of you,   
    then we take a nap, we’re late for school

    you arrive at night inspired and drunk,   
    there is no...
  • Poem

    The Love Cook

    By Ron Padgett
    Let me cook you some dinner.   
    Sit down and take off your shoes   
    and socks and in fact the rest   
    of your clothes, have a daquiri,   
    turn on some music and dance   
    around the house, inside and out,   
    it’s night and the neighbors   
    are sleeping, those dolts,...
  • Poem

    Tamer and Hawk

    By Thom Gunn
    I thought I was so tough,
    But gentled at your hands,
    Cannot be quick enough
    To fly for you and show
    That when I go I go
    At your commands.

    Even in flight above
    I am no longer free:
    You seeled me with your love,
    I am blind to...
  • Poem

    To His Coy Mistress

    By Andrew Marvell
    Had we but world enough and time,
    This coyness, lady, were no crime.
    We would sit down, and think which way
    To walk, and pass our long love’s day.
    Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
    Shouldst rubies find; I by...
  • Poem

    I am Trying to Break Your Heart

    By Kevin Young
    I am hoping
    to hang your head

    on my wall
    in shame—

    the slightest taxidermy
    thrills me. Fish

    forever leaping
    on the living-room wall—

    paperweights made
    from skulls

    of small animals.
    I want to wear

    your smile on my sleeve
    & break

    your heart like a horse
    or its leg. Weeks of being

    bucked off, then
    all...
  • Poem

    One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

    By Pablo Neruda
    Translated By Mark Eisner
    I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   
    or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   
    I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   
    secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

    I love you as the plant that doesn’t...
  • Poem

    Finale

    By Pablo Neruda
    Matilde, years or days   
    sleeping, feverish,   
    here or there,
    gazing off,
    twisting my spine,   
    bleeding true blood,   
    perhaps I awaken   
    or am lost, sleeping:
    hospital beds, foreign windows,
    white uniforms of the silent walkers,
    the clumsiness of feet.

    And then, these journeys   
    and my sea of renewal:   
    your head on the pillow,   
    your hands...
  • Poem

    The Pomegranate and the Big Crowd

    By Alberto Ríos
    Ventura because she was hungry and because
    She was curious—but more because she was curious—
    Took the dare, a kiss for a pomegranate.
    Everyone gathered, her friends and his. Everyone
    Watched: the boys, the girls, the pigs and the chickens,
    And more. Moving to the...
  • Poem

    poetry-magazine

    In Love with You

    By Kenneth Koch

                                               I

    O what a physical effect it has on me
    To dive forever into the light blue sea
    Of your acquaintance! Ah,...
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