Valentine II

You asked me gently, in February, “What does love mean to you?” parroting the question we heard from the couple on TV.

It was then that I tried to think of answers your ears would be delighted to hear, Valentine. Love is You, love is This, love is The Expensive Ring You Bought For My Left Index Finger.

A challenge, then. It pounced, it leaped. A sonnet startled by its own meter. Love took her thumbs and placed them under my jaw, to hold my head and guide my eyes around the room.

Look, she said.

Love is the bumble bee that lingers in your apartment, whose complimentary sunflower stands at mine. It is the photograph of you in your graduation robes captured by my hurried hands after the rest of the day was lost to a faulty hard drive.

It is the newly anointed sweater resting upon my shoulders after you heard I wanted to create a “capsule closet”. So silly, you’d say. Where should we start?, said Love.

Saint Valentine existed, and was tried by the church for carrying out marriages in secret. For this, he was slain. Even then, Love lived best in rooms where no one was watching.

The woman on TV said her mother’s definition of love was the anticipation she felt hearing her husband’s keys jingle in the lock.

And when I sit at a restaurant, alone at the table while you’ve gone to wash your hands, I recognize exactly what she meant.

The small lift in my chest, the quiet leaning forward,

as your curls turn the corner and the whole room rearranges itself to let you through.