Poetry Tuesdays — What Lips My Lips Have Kissed

This is one of my absolute favorites. Read it out loud. Feel the words roll off your tongue. Feel the rhythm push you through to the next line. Remember, read it a few times. Let it make sense to you in whatever way it makes sense. Let it make you feel what it makes you feel. Don’t force it. Just listen, and enjoy.

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, and Where, and Why
— Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain,
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Image credit: Alyssa Monks
“Morning After”
Oil on linen
2005

Until next time,
That guy