I thought your name meant to love,

not to carry a burden, and how

did I know today, San Valentino,

is the birthday of your darkest loss—

that three tango shoes still sulk

in a dark corner of your closet

behind the traveling trunk

with the worn out stickers:

Istanbul, Cairo, Bagdad, London,

Paris, Edinburgh? A confession—the story

of a car crash on the way to damage

my wife's lover was no consolation—

idiota! Now I know you have the amber eyes

flecked with emerald, of a water sprite,

that you tango on stilts with shadows.

I swear I would not kill a man over you.

I would be nice to the cake eater

and give him blood roses, thorn-less ones,

to fling at your feet.  We wouldn't want

the little rube to get lost among the lot lizards

working the bleachers. Basta così, amore

della mia vita, should I have known better.

Had I not been warned about the red dress

and told not to dance along the shoreline

under a Roma moon with a woman whose kiss

could pull a cold wave over my face?

I see broken combs, lace from a wedding dress torn into bandages. Which fork to use when all the plates are broken? Do you serve poison with your left hand or your right hand? We do want to be correct. A scrap of parchment, perhaps a message, floats down, flipping, spinning, and lands on the path. A scythe swings, harvesting the stars. A partially melted knife reflects a lavender moon. This is how to cradle the night in a shopping bag. Is the miasma tolling for thee? Bruised memory, how to sigh in fourteen languages. Habibi, let me press this moss to the sky, let me stanch the bleeding. There is some good news, the scrap of foil is not a scrap of foil, see how quietly it flaps its wings once and then flies away, it flies away.

Lets hear it for Saint Valentine, although there were many of them over the centuries. Valentinus was one of several Saint Valentines to be beheaded. Later, a chapel was built over the saint’s remains. There are pieces of Valentinus, arms, legs, ears, and of course, his heart, scattered, on display all over Europe and Asia Minor. Abelard and Eloise were famous lovers. He a priest and she his student. Her uncle did not appreciate their union, and one night, took him aside and demonstrated his displeasure by having him castrated. Both took refuge in separate monasteries and wrote love letters to each other for the rest of their lives. She, bride of Christ, wrote to Abelard, let me be your whore. Forget candles, chocolates and flowers—love is dangerous and deadly. Mona Lisa with her vacant eyes, with her thin-lipped smile of scorn.