Valentine

Our poetry challenge this week from L.L. Barkat exhorts us to “Write a poem that begins, middles, or ends with Once upon a time...or even just Once...Or, if you’d prefer, you could use some other common fairy tale language like happily ever after. Just try to tell a moment true and whole. . .”

L.L. encourages us, this week, to not “shrink from the darkness...”

Here is my offering.

Valentine

Once

upon a time

Love was

a craft store heart

bold and full

and brilliant red,

with voluptuously

rounded analogous curves

and

perfectly pointed tip.

White lace would surround

clean and bright

and

wonderful

this partial carefully bedded

in crumpled tissue

and placed in box

to be

opened on special occasions and

exclaimed over

before packed away again.

Once

upon a time

I never knew

the fleshy bleeding pulse

of real love

this messy mass of muscle

which strengthens with exertion

This wound in my chest

a holy ache

as hands reach

in

try to pull sinews

free this pounding

fear inside

This heart

beats

outside of this body

where sorrow

and joy

walk hand in hand

sister-friends

bound

by real love.

**friends, I will resume our online Bible study of Jennifer Rothschild's book, Soul Talk Self Talk next week. Rather than posting on this week's chapter, I am choosing to practice what the Psalmist encourages us to do: Look up.

Thank you for sticking with me.