I Want You — Summary

Al FowlerRomantic

i want you under open sky the sun in your forehead & spread hair the grass around your thighs making no mistakes of roundness i want you in water & the air i want you as long as there is ocean on the same earth i want the feel of under you a planet rhythmic as love giving all quarter i want you wherever there is room enough to lie down.

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The speaker keeps saying one thing: "i want you." The poem is a list of places and conditions where that wanting lives, and each one is wide and natural: open sky, grass, water, air, ocean. The lover isn't pictured in a bedroom or a city. Instead the body is set into the landscape, with sun on the forehead, hair spread out, and grass around the thighs.

The tone is warm, easy and confident. Nothing in it sounds anxious or pleading. The phrase "making no mistakes / of roundness" suggests the body and the earth fit together naturally, as if curves were part of the planet's own design. Later the speaker wants to feel "a planet / rhythmic as / love" beneath them, so the earth itself becomes a partner in the love.

The last line brings it down to something simple and physical: "wherever there is room enough / to lie down." After all the grand imagery, the wanting turns out to be modest and generous. It asks for almost nothing except space and closeness.

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