As I was researching poems for this list, I found that I knew exactly what I didn’t like in an erotic poem. Descriptions of throbbing veins and the curve of her creamy white neck, for example, do not move me. This means that if you love phallic symbols and lingering contemplations of white ladies’ necks, you’re not going to see very much of that here. Sorry. I landed on these 13 erotic poems that I think are genuinely sexy for one reason or another. For some, it’s the urgency in the speaker’s voice. It’s lovely to feel seen and needed. Poems with sensory detail so rich that I feel embodied in the poem itself also make a strong case for eroticism. There’s at least one poem here that had me pressing my hand to my heart with my mouth open, thinking with joy, “can they say that?” So, here I present to you, 13 erotic poems that span from the classics to the contemporary, each of which made me sigh at least once:
1. “Sea Poppies” by H.d.
Excerpt: your stalk has caught root among wet pebbles and drift flung by the sea and grated shells and split conch-shells.
2. “basket of figs” by ellen bass*
Excerpt: Bring me your pain, love. Spread it out like fine rugs, silk sashes, warm eggs, cinnamon and cloves in burlap sacks. Show me
3. “At the Touch of You” by Witter BYnner
Excerpt: At the touch of you, As if you were an archer with your swift hand at the bow, The arrows of delight shot through my body.
4. “To His Mistress Going to Bed” by John Donne
Excerpt: Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy, Until I labour, I in labour lie. The foe oft-times having the foe in sight, Is tir’d with standing though he never fight. Off with that girdle, like heaven’s Zone glistering, But a far fairer world encompassing.
5. “Fragment 38” by Sappho
you burn me
6. “The Floating Poem, Unnumbered” by Adrienne rich
Excerpt: Whatever happens with us, your body will haunt mine—tender, delicate your lovemaking, like the half-curled frond of the fiddlehead fern in forests The Pin
7. “Recreation” by Audre Lorde
Excerpt: Touching you I catch midnight as moon fires set in my throat I love you flesh into blossom I made you and take you made into me.
8. “The Atheist” by Megan Falley
The first time we made love I realized why I never prayed. One human can only say Oh God so many times.
9. “Assurance” by Emma Lazarus
Excerpt: Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed Together in my dream, through some dim glade, Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss.
10. “Lust” by Yusef Komunyakaa
Excerpt: Words, juicy as passionfruit On her tongue. He’d do anything, Would dance three days & nights To make the most terrible gods The Pin
11. “The Encounter” by Louise Glück
Excerpt: You came to the side of the bed and sat staring at me. Then you kissed me—I felt hot wax on my forehead. I wanted it to leave a mark: that’s how I knew I loved you.
12. “Love Sonnet XI” by Pablo Neruda
Excerpt: I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair. Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets. Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps. I hunger for your sleek laugh, your hands the color of a savage harvest, hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails, I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.
13. “Aubade” by Amy Lowell
Excerpt: As I would free the white almond from the green husk So I would strip your trappings off, Beloved. For even more erotic poems, check out this list. For 58 beautiful love poems, click here.
