Fair warning

In the name of all things couple-ish, I'm posting the poem below for the few who haven't remembered that Sunday is Valentine's Day. I know exceptionally intelligent, savvy, and not too terribly romantic women who have dissolved into exactly the sort of women they can't stand, for want of a card or flower, even one snipped from a neighborhood yard, on Valentine's Day. And I have no doubt more than a few men have secretly wanted to be the recipient of a chocolate or two themselves behind a bluff exterior of 'What a ridiculous day.' Very few men ever get bouquets of flowers sent with love. Give it a try, just for the surprise of it. Fair warning!

St. Valentine's Day

by Norah Pollard

My father was unable to hug me
or talk to me. He could never say
"I love you." He was too shy.
Too, his mind was in
another world.

But whenever he came home from his journeys,
he'd bring me presents—Little Lady Toilet Water,
that grand midnight blue Stetson,
those many Waterman and Parker pens,
the pocketbook with the brass eagle clasp.
And for all occasions, overblown cards
with the puffy scented satin heart or rose
on the front. Inside, his scraggy signature,
"To my Paddy, from her Daddy."

When you did not give me
a Valentine today,
I was undone.
And I wept in the shower
even though I am an adult and know
gifts are materialistic shallow
commercially driven wasteful crap.

But why, why could you not have
Wasted some mute love on me?