William Shakespeare’s Sonnet #20

Here’s a human, here’s a beach, here’s a poem about desire that refuses to behave itself. Figure it out.

Maybe that’s the whole point. These words still work. They still cut. We’re still wrestling with the same beautiful mess: who we love, how we love, what we’re allowed to say about it, and whether saying it out loud in public is an act of courage or madness.

Probably both.

A woman’s face with Nature’s own hand painted
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion;
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.
And for a woman wert thou first created,
Till Nature as she wrought thee fell a-doting,
And by addition me of thee defeated
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she pricked thee out for women’s pleasure,
Mine be thy love, and thy love’s use their treasure.

Ava Roy reciets Shakespeare Sonnet #20 on Baker Beach