Poems by audience
Poems for Adults
10 poemsThis collection gathers poems shaped by adult experience: partnership, work, aging, bodies, grief, responsibility, starting again, and the choices that remain complicated even after we are expected to know better.
Each poem is an original EveryPoem editorial work, selected for its relevance to this theme. Open a poem to read the full text, notes on its themes, and literary devices.
Read Poems for Adults
Ode to the Body at Forty
O body, you magnificent disaster, you creak now getting out of chairs and take the stairs a half-beat slower
Poems Are Not for Children
Someone told me once that poetry is for school. That it lives between September and June.
The Body Keeps the Poem
I'm going to say what I mean. No metaphors. No curtains.
The First Box Unpacked
The new room echoes when I set down the box. On its side, black marker:
The Long Argument
Marriage is a long argument about the thermostat.
The Map of Enough
I used to draw the map with more on it— the house would be bigger, the job would have a window,
The Slow Arithmetic of Love
We don't say I love you anymore. We say: your phone is at eleven percent. We say: I picked up the thing
The Things You Outgrow
You will outgrow shoes. This is expected. You will outgrow clothes, bedrooms.
What Marriage Is
This morning you stood at the mirror and cursed your hair with a creativity
What the Clock Said
When I was young, the afternoons were countries with no border known, and summer hummed its lazy tunes