Loss

The central theme of "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" is loss, though different interpretations of the poem will focus on different kinds of loss. On one hand, the poem can be read as a meditation on lost love – a common theme for sonnets dating all the way back to the English Renaissance. The speaker laments her current state of loneliness as she recalls the lovers of her past, remembering their lips meeting or the arms that cradled her head at night. It becomes clear early on in the poem that the speaker is thinking about the past and how it stands in stark contrast to her present circumstances, which are characterized by isolation and a haunting sense of absence. The speaker cultivates this mood by imagining that the rain on her window is "full of ghosts," introducing the reader to the notion that something has...