[I lost a glove
then lost the other.]
I’d no more forms
that could withhold
the snows, the storms,
the perishing cold.

    — Justin Quinn, from “A Glove”

But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie —
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie —
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.

    — Edgar Allan Poe, from “For Annie”

My loves are here: wrists, eyelids, damp toes, all scars, and my mouth
pouring praises, still asking, saying kiss me; when I’m dead kiss this poem,
it needs you to know it goes on, give it your lovely mouth, your living tongue.

    — Kim Addonizio, “Kisses” from What is this Thing Called Love

Arriving from always, you’ll go away everywhere.

    — Arthur Rimbaud, from “To a Reason”

[In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.]
She would like some one to speak to her,
And she is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion

    — Ezra Pound, from “The Garden”

We are the pioneers

of our own histories, drawn
to the horizon as if we waited just for us

the way the young are drawn
to the future, the old to the past.

    — Linda Pastan, from “Driving West”