Valentine’s Day
By Ruth Hoberman
First stop, CVS: cards for the grandkids. Red hearts like catalpa leaves—is this what love looks like? Nothing like the maroon mess inside me, with its twittering valves and worry. Study its dimensions (breadth, height, depth, by imagined disaster) and you’ll see anything can happen—husband, dog, daughter, grandkids crushed (toppling masonry, coyote, truck)—though mornings, there they are unscathed. So why still this slip of muskrat through the mind— brown furred curve surfacing—quick swimmer, gone but hunkered near? Even in daylight, I feel the hush and sigh of its breathing. Holstered, ready: call me the quick-draw master of panic. And here in my hands two cards: animals holding hearts. We love you says the unicorn. We love you says the golden bear.
Ruth Hoberman is a writer living in Newtonville, Massachusetts. Since her 2015 retirement from Eastern Illinois University, she has published poems and personal essays in (most recently) Salamander, Solstice, Ibbetson Street, and Nixes Mate.
03/13 / Poetry Reading and Conversation with visiting poet-in-residence Hua Xi and local poets Carolina Hospital, Nicole Hospital-Medina, and Holly Iglesias / 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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