I know it’s a consumer holiday. I know it’s commercial. I know it’s heteronormative. I know. But I love Valentine’s Day. Love it. I’ve sent out cards every year for years. I love it when I am single. I love it when I am coupled.
Valentine’s Day, however, does not love me back. Single or coupled, my recollections of Valentine’s Day are often dark and miserable. It never goes the way I want. I build it up and it crashes down. So this year, I am doing nothing. I am not making Valentine’s. I am not going on a date, or having a single’s dinner. I am going to move about my Saturday, business as usual. I am going to throw clay at the studio. Make dinner. Have drinks with friends. No hearts or red or candy. Just me and my everyday life. Fine.
I did, however, go see He’s Just Not That Into You today. And yesterday I visited Longway Planetarium for an event called “Poetry Under the Stars”. These incidents, combined with my already over the top sentimentality, have resulted in the following poem. I apologize in advance for the pretentious numbering.
I.
Under the domed ceiling of the planetarium
the galaxy is much smaller.
My head is tilted back
and gazing I want to be lost in its orbit
but Orion’s belt, the only constellation
I recognize rotates through again
and again and I am still here,
sinking in this space without you—
or with you, really, since
by Orion’s count, we are that close.
II.
On Valentine’s Day we woke
to a snow day: each child’s adolescent fantasy
but our adult reality and so like children
we were blissful in bed, the sheets warm
and inviting sex or simply sleep.
Sleeping with you was never easy;
tossing and turning, your body sharp,
angular. I woke often to the sound
of the alarm you slept through—
watched your slow breath,
nudged you softly until you woke.
Yes. I did love you.
III.
I had a dream stamps cost 52 cents
and it shocked me. The change wouldn’t have mattered,
but the effort you couldn’t afford.
In either case, you sent no letters
in the waking world.
IV.
You walked me home.
You brought me lilacs.
You left notes on my mirror.
You left.
V.
Back in the planetarium
the night sky is littered
with stars and Orion is smug—
near eternity to hunt his quarry.
Orion is the new cupid.
His silly arrow perched on the bow,
Waiting for the precise second,
the exact moment when the strike is fatal.
Or I am Orion and we will both
fade sooner than expected,
exhausted from waiting.
VI.
In winter I miss you most,
though fall is also difficult.
And spring. Perhaps summer.
The seasons mellow or intensify
an unforgivable truth:
Yes. I still love you.