Colors of Love Poetry

One of Febr uar y’s troubadours, love poems glimmer like candy hearts against a blue sk y. Coming in a ll hues, like love itself, they have the power to adore, seduce, honor, bind, anger, gr ieve, forgive, apprec iate, engage, mend, reconc ile and more. From classic to contempo rar y, verses of love and passion inspire us to give voice to the seemingly indesc r ibable. In honor of Va lentine’s Day, we have assembled a collection of poetr y submitted f rom area w r iters that w ill war m the heart of Saint Va lentine himself.

The Savings & Moan

These Days

we walk slower, hand in hand. I miss my good k nees, the miles I ran on blacktop, on countr y roads through fields, always r unning, moving, cover ing distance as if that would take me any where —when all I ever needed, I see now, is you, r ight here: this home, our yard, my hand in yours, on a Sunday af ter noon.

— Steve Cushman Maybe swing ing a nine-pound hammer in Hell, sweat hissing on pillow-shaped rock s that break and bind, mock ing my sting ing eyes, I’ll lose track of Fr iday nights when we were alone at the top of the savings & loan building.

Or stroke-addled, swabbing the floor at the Mission shelter, I’ll drop the mop to end a week, mutter past the wet floor sig n, false teeth click ing, and not want you — tilting into our spell, then pulling back, tr ue to your computer.

But never in my r ight mind will Fr idays above the lights go blank, lovely Fr iend.

— Michael Gaspeny

Tiramisu

W hen Julie says she wants Tiramisu I do what husbands have done forever, go searching. First the Italian Baker y on Westr idge, but they’re out, then A lex’s Cheesecake dow ntow n, but no luck there. I even tr y a couple chain restaurants but you g uessed it they’re out. Finally, I asked the pastr y chef at Cug ino For no and he said, “Man, it’s National Tiramisu Day.”

Ok ay, so let’s add that to the list of things I don’t k now. Finally, I hit Best way’s f rozen food aisle and somehow they have a Sarah L ee t wo -pack, which I buy.

Julie smiles, says, “T hank you this is just what I wanted. But what took you so long?” I shr ug, “T here’s a r un on Tiramisu today,” and she laughs as we settle in to watch a gardening show on Netfli x. I wave away her attempts to share the Tiramisu, tell her to enjoy the whole thing, secretly hoping she’ll save a little, perhaps a bite or t wo, for me.

— Steve Cushman (*March 21 is Tiramisu Day)

Dried Flowers & Other Crafts

L eaf through pages of my flesh, find quilt- comfor t memor ies. Read how the day before yesterday becomes three decades. Showers together, cof fee, cozy sock s and couches. Enough, for a time. Peel back three pages f rom my book of sk in at shoulder, where muscle meets gauze-white membrane, a spot that holds one dr ied ir is pressed bet ween t wo black & white photos. One shows us hik ing near L olo Pass Road, bet ween mounds of boulders, before we found our almost-smooth meadow. I will not speak of the second photo. Not yet.

— John Haugh

July 12, 2007, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

Full f rom ice cream and a sun-filled day my son and I walk the half mile back to our rental house, as the g ulls circle overhead and the bik inied g irls pass us by on pink and yellow rental bikes. Of course, I’d like to stretch this week at the beach out forever, but I can’t. Back home, there are rooms to be painted and yards to be mowed, not to mention bills to be paid. But for a few more minutes, Trevor and I are walk ing barefoot on the hot sidewalk and when I t ur n to the lef t I spot this dark-haired woman waving at us f rom a balcony and as she waves I realize she’s my wife, and this is my life, and I’m no doubt luck ier than I have any r ight to be.

— Steve Cushman

Serenade

I promise there will always be sweet f resh sheets for you:

I have labored to iron away the creases of many solitar y nights,

pledge that we will lie on a new bed with caref ully sor ted memor ies,

even as we cr umple toward our inevitable ber ths.

— Valerie Nieman

Power Outage

For three days the power was out, so each night af ter work we huddled close on the couch, under that thick blue blanket, reading book s by candlelight, dr ink ing wine, our legs inter t wined.

L ater, in bed, even if we didn’t make love we reached for each other, for war mth, which at times felt more intimate than lovemak ing.

W hen the lights flickered on the third day I closed my eyes and thought no, not yet, as if my thoughts had the power to do any thing, and she cussed, dammit.

In the mor ning, we woke under so many layers, both of us covered in sweat as if a fever had broken and what was ahead might be better days, the star t of something new.

— Steve Cushman

Secret Admirer

W hoever set the bouquet at your door, in a vase with pink bows double-k notted around its glass throat, doesn’t k now you well. You hate pink. Maybe whoever, approaching so intimately with sex and death in hand, breathed in the faint scent of (pink) car nations, but probably just the f unereal odor that clings to ever y petal, eucalypt us and vinegar.

Vinegar that you pour at the feet of gardenias so the leaves will be g reen and the flowers so sweet before they jaundice and fall.

Cut flowers, br ight in their dying, daisies, asters, roses, car nations. Casting messages around like pollen, innocence/patience/pr ide/ love.

Hardly any f rag rance to flowers anymore except for chr ysanthemums; your cousin’s f uneral put you of f them forever, the way your mother hated gardenias. W hy gardenias? A nother woman’s per f ume, perhaps, she herself favor ing Chanel No. 5 when she could, thick with jasmine. Gardenia is named jasminoides, yet not even k in, like someone pilfer ing a dead child ’s name. Such snif fer y.

You wait for another deliver y. W hoever, maybe.

Sizing Up

T he car penter in the Craig nure Inn, car r ying still his flat pencil in its nar row pocket, look s my way now and again, gaug ing this accidental bird alighted at his local.

A small man precise as his work, measure t wice and cut once; he has a cur ved nose and not a spare bit of flesh, the plane having worked him close to the bone. His vest is joined neatly, his g inger hair clipped.

I unfold myself f rom the low chair like a car penter’s r ule, near si x feet of well-fed A mer ican woman, and go to settle up. Behind me at the bar, I don’t see him but I feel him quietly slip away.

— Valerie Nieman

Popover

I had never heard of York shire P uddings until my wife made them. Julie’s Br itish, says her family ate them ever y Sunday g rowing up, along with a baked chicken, some potatoes, roasted car rots or g reen beans. Sometimes she calls them Popovers. T hat’s the name our son uses for these overg row n muf fins of oil and flour and egg, puf fed in the middle, so that a fork or k nife can send them toppling in on themselves. W hat I’m tr ying to say here is I can’t imag ine my life without these treats f rom across the ocean and my son, if you could see the way he ravages them, you would k now, feels the same.

— Steve Cushman