101 Poems to Get You Through the Day (and Night)

As Sweet
It’s all because we’re so alike—
Twin souls, we two.
We smile at the expression, yes,
And know it’s true.

I told the shrink. He gave our love
A different name.
But he can call it what he likes—
It’s still the same.

I long to see you, hear your voice,
My narcissistic object-choice.

Wendy Cope

now she has to turn
away, and her bruised eyes
are smiling in their nets:
“It’s simple, isn’t it?
Never say the yes
you don’t mean, but the no
you always meant, say that,
even if it’s too late,
even if it kills you.”

Carol Rumens

Friends
They might not need me; but they might.
I’ll let my head be just in sight;
A smile as small as mine might be
Precisely their necessity.

Emily Dickinson

Open the right poem at the right moment and you will be intoxicated by the distillation of meaning; as its sense unravels you will find it reaching into the nooks and crannies of your mind.

days for?”

A good poem—the right words in the right order—is human experience at its most concentrated.