Oh, the hearts and flowers day again? Well. Okay.

Poems about Valentine's Day (sort of) from a non-Valentine

Get a room, you two. Photo by Kate Bowen on Unsplash

---

On Valentine’s Day, and contemplating romantic love in general, I feel the way I felt during the gymnastics unit in high-school P.E. class, watching my classmates fling themselves over the vault or the bars or along the balance beam. I see why you like it. I see how exhilarating it looks. And I … am not made that way. Wish sometimes that I was, tried sometimes to act like I might be, but … no. Not made that way.

It’s fine. Only, when I do write a love poem, it doesn’t always look like one.

---

THE ANNOYING LOVERS                                                          2012


The annoying lovers, a few tables over at the café,
cannot sit still, and gaze, and whisper — no,
they must for love’s sake be endlessly twitching:
he lifts her hair, she touches his cheek,
he links his fingers round her wrists, she feeds him
a bite from her cruller; rising to refill
their cups, he pauses to wind his arms
around her neck and murmur in her ear; seated again 
they clasp hands, re-clasp them, lean forward
to kiss — never still, the tics of desire
on full display, as if they enjoy display,
or believe they are invisible, or we are.

And when did it happen, I wonder, brooding over decaf
a few tables over, that the sight of this twitchy
joyful affliction began to irk me,
lost its poignancy, its charm, became
a plain annoyance? Have I lived so long
in savored solitude, no motion but my own
to mirror, that this unending restless dance
exasperates my hard-won sense of quiet? Envy,
could it be? Do I want what they have? No, but
I remember wanting to want it, and how much
the wanting seared. Not the touching and twitching
sparks envy, but their easy unscarred certainty
in one another’s pleasure — that, yes. Not to mention
the ostentatious disregard of all things not themselves;
having my own well-practiced habit of invisibility,
it piques me to be practiced on.

                                                        And now they stand; 
she smooths his jacket collar, he strokes her hair again, 
one more full-body embrace and they are out the door, 
the center of the universe moving with them. Around me
the café ticks and hums; annoyance fades,
becomes a new thing as I open my notebook
to write it down. Pen kisses paper,
thought caresses page, a phrase leans forward
to see itself reflected in the writer’s eyes — look,
the universe has re-centered a few tables over,
where my notebook and I sit gazing, speaking,
almost invisible, almost unmoving, altogether,
annoyingly, in love.

---

CHINESE RESTAURANTS AND MOVIE THEATERS                2023


It works in late December, I am promised by friends
who know, so why not in the midst of February? 
Brush past some mylar hearts in the lobby
of the Roxie or the Kowloon Palace,
wait till the kung pao chicken is plated
or the first trailer flashes up, and just like that
today is simply a day, yours as much as anyone’s,
even if you have no sweetheart or are no sweetheart,
or are allergic to chocolate or prefer a spray of rosemary
to any dozen roses, even if your heart
is its own shape, not so much trimmed with lace
as frayed around the edges — still, here, a grateful distance
from the clamor of merchants and true believers,
the One-Plus-Ones entangled in each other’s gaze, 
here while you chopstick-fumble wicked peppers
to one side of the plate or laugh in surprise
at a plot twist, here you can be One, not Two-Minus-One,
alone in company with other Ones at other tables, sprawled
in other rows, exchanging without word or glance
the love-gift of agreement that this need not be Our Day
but just the day it is, no frills or decorations called for,
except maybe an extra slip inside the fortune cookie.
Or not. A single fortune is enough. A single fortune is fine.

---