Craig Rozniecki's title is a small trap. "Better Than Sex" prepares the reader for something provocative, even boastful, and then the poem walks the other way: eyes, hands, dishes, laundry, dogs, the mall. Sex is never mentioned again. Instead the speaker argues by accumulation, suggesting that the deepest satisfaction in a relationship is not one peak moment but the whole texture of shared days.
The construction carries that idea. The poem is a single sentence, a chain of infinitives ("To look," "To see," "To hold," "To buy," "To wash") with no main clause to rest on. The verb that governs everything arrives only in the last line: "That's all I want." Each "To" is a wish waiting for its sentence to finish, so the longing builds before it is named. When it comes, it is blunt and almost a shrug. "All" is the interesting word, because it sounds modest while standing for everything listed above it.
There is no rhyme and no regular metre. The lines are short, often just a verb and an object, and they come in pairs: "To see you laugh, / See you smile." The rhythm is that of ticking items off a list, which suits a poem about routine. Polished rhyme would clash with the plainness the speaker is after.
The order of the list is worth watching. It begins with the senses (eyes, a hand, laughter, breathing), moves to the gestures of courtship (gifts, going out, poems, jokes), and then turns suddenly to labour: "To wash the dishes, / Cook and clean," "Do the laundry." Family follows: kids, dogs, errands, and finally "Shop at the mall," about the least glamorous wish a love poem could make. "Write you poems" and "Do the laundry" sit on the same grammatical footing, and the speaker wants both equally. That levelling is the poem's real claim, that the chores are part of the love, not an interruption of it.
Physical intimacy arrives only afterwards: "To feel your lips upon mine, / A soft and gentle touch." Here the language turns most abstract. "Filled with passion, / Filled with love" reads like a greeting card, while the sharpest details belong to the dishes and the dogs. A critical reader might call this the poem's weak spot. Another could say it shows where the speaker's attention really lies. "Relaxation at its peak" is an oddly clinical phrase, and the word "peak" may be a quiet wink back at the title, though that is an inference.
Sleep gives the second half a loose circular shape. Early on the speaker will "Watch you sleep"; later he will "fall asleep in your arms" and wake "As you lay right beside me." The plain, slightly colloquial "lay" fits a voice that never reaches for elegance. The day has closed and begun again, and the partner is still there.
The final movement makes the strongest turn. Early in the poem the speaker wanted to "see you laugh, / See you smile," as a spectator. In the closing lines the same words return with a different verb: "To make you laugh, / To make you smile, / To make you happy." Watching has become causing. The last wish is not for his own pleasure but for hers, and repeated daily, not once. That is how the poem justifies its title. A single act of pleasure ends, but being the reason someone is happy can be renewed every morning.
The poem is worth studying for a few reasons. It shows how a title can set up an expectation that the body of the poem quietly overturns. It shows how syntax can be structure, since the delayed main clause creates suspense without any rhyme or complicated imagery. And it shows how a list, usually the plainest of forms, can build an argument through order and repetition. Its stock phrases ("soft and gentle," "filled with joy") are a real limitation. But its central idea is clear and memorable: ordinary life, shared with someone, can be the most romantic thing a person wants.