Almost a Heart
By Ann Lauinger
Today is The Hunter’s last Valentine’s Day. Let the record show how eight decades of sweet talk and banter are lavished tonight on The Parcae, three kindly, hygienic females who sponge and diaper, tucking him in, fluttering out. They’ll be back soon with the shears. Let the record show the lifelong Hunt for pubis or bum, desire’s rude triangles, almost a heart. This is the house The Hunter built. Let the record show The Three-Cornered Home for The Wife, The Girlfriend he cheated on The Wife with, and The Other Girlfriend he cheated on The Cheating-on-The-Wife Girlfriend with. Note the separate studio for that ever-popular girl group, The Incidentals. Let the record show The Hunter is still beloved. Taped to the blank TV screen, item, one hand-made valentine (from artist girl-friend) item, one comic valentine (from witty girl-friend). Perched on the narrow white bed, item, one daughter. The Hunter whimpers without waking, I want my mommy. Is love, that ruthless, that simple? Let the record show.
Ann Lauinger’s three books are Dime Saint, Nickel Devil (Broadstone Books, 2022), Against Butterflies (Little Red Tree, 2013), and Persuasions of Fall (U. of Utah, 2004), which won the Agha Shahid Ali Prize. Poems have appeared in journals such as The Cumberland River Review, Georgia Review, Parnassus, Smartish Pace, and Southern Poetry Review; in anthologies including The Bedford Introduction to Literature; and on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily.
Last Call / Submit by 02/14/2026 to Sonnet Boom: Love Poems for Miami, a poetry contest brought to you by SWWIM, Elevate Miami, and O, Miami. Youth and adult categories. Cash prizes. Free to enter. See Submittable for complete guidelines.
03/19 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Sunni Brown Wilkinson & local poet Elizabeth Jacobson / The BBar at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7-8:30 pm EST / Free
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Wow… so sad and so true
What a grim poem. I mean, just wow.