A Valentine Story

She received a valentine once

in the second grade,

a pretty card of two Dutch children,

signed Larry.

Larry lived two blocks after hers. They kinda walked home together.

He mostly ran around trees, jumped on porches, pretending to be a super hero.

She saved her valentine in a cigar box

with a chestnut, some marbles, and a 7 Up bottle cap.,

After fifty years, she thinks about energy, DNA, and the odds of Larry landing on the moon or in prison.

Comments

cracked egg

The year she stopped eating and working and talking, she devolved, draping cloth over mirrors, not brushing her teeth. She went from Emily Dickinson to Sylvia Plath to Anne Sexton, reading their work over and over, copying their words. A day came. She reached for a pencil... cracked egg, hot griddle. Her first poem filled two pages. She now eats oatmeal and wanton soup from the Chinese restaurant.

forgotten, confused

Her recollection was vague, faded. Had it ever happened? Possibly a dream, forgotten, confused. He looks at her. She should ask. Do you...? Did you...? His blink washes away a tear. She remembers.

Linda A. Lavid

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