E. E. Cummings

My Love Is Building a Building

My Love Is Building a Building - meaning Summary

Love as Protective Architecture

The speaker describes love as an active construction around the beloved, shaping a contradictory shelter—both fragile and strong, skilled and clumsy—rooted in the beloved’s smile. The poem presents this work as a protective, magical tower that resists the random, inevitable force of death. The tone is intimate and urgent: love’s labor assembles a sanctuary meant to preserve the beloved’s expression and hold it breathless against dissolution.

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my love is building a building around you, a frail slippery house, a strong fragile house (beginning at the singular beginning of your smile)a skilful uncouth prison, a precise clumsy prison(building thatandthis into Thus, Around the reckless magic of your mouth) my love is building a magic, a discrete tower of magic and(as i guess) when Farmer Death(whom fairies hate)shall crumble the mouth-flower fleet He'll not my tower, laborious, casual where the surrounded smile hangs breathless

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