in propria persona

Sharon Olds, Stag’s Leap

Rainer Maria Rilke in a letter to Lou Andreas-Salomé, published in Rilke and Andreas-Salomé: A Love Story in Letters

Audre Lorde, The Cancer Journals

Ariel Day, from a poem titled "Games," featured in Black Roses: Poems about Love, Heartbreak, Mental Health, Self Love

Eartha Kitt (1957)

In for the night, Heidrun Rathgeb

Mary Oliver, from The Journey

Mary Oliver, from The Fire

Natalie Diaz, “Manhattan Is a Lenape Word.” Postcolonial Love Poem

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Sometimes I Pretend.” A Maze Me: Poems for Girls

Frank Bidart, from "To the Dead"

David Leonard (American, 1962), NYC Study #64, 2025. Oil on board, 11 × 12 in.

joy sullivan

Franny Choi, from “Catastrophe is Next to Godliness”