Here we publish poetry found in the desk drawers of departed employees, in the publisher’s waste basket, scratched on the table in the meeting room, and sometimes in the street.
e. e. noonoo, poetry editor
Valentine’s Day
Here’s to St. Valentine: just who was that man?
Or was she a woman? Please tell, if you can.
Explain what he did to deserve such repute
And how he inspired cards with messages cute
Like “Kisses” and “Sweetheart,” “I’m yours, you be mine”
And chocolates and flowers and dinners with wine.
What legend is honored by all of that passion?
And why is the sentiment yearly in fashion?
I’m hoping that some day somebody discovers
Just how he became the great patron of lovers
Whose looks and endearments, too warm to repeat here
Should make them all ask, “Are we being discreet, dear?”
And why is it children at ages so tender
Cut out paper hearts for the opposite gender
While octogenarian sages and dandies
Send bouquets of pompoms and boxes of candies
To gray-headed, spectacled, wrinkle-skinned lasses
Whose teeth spend the night by their bedsides in glasses?
Well, maybe this Valentine person was Cupid,
Who, wanting to make modern people look stupid,
Dreamed up a disguise as a saint up in heaven
And tipped all his arrows with love’s potent leaven
And each February comes down and injects us
With doses of love or whatever infects us.
Whoever he was or she was doesn’t matter
So much as the way that my heart starts to patter
As Valentine’s Day at my florist’s gets closer
And kisses are put on display by my grocer.
So even if this day is just to make money
I’ve got to go get something sweet for my honey.
–Paul Fairchild
