what wasn't meant to be written on a valentine and
how i want to remember loving you.

when i used to make valentines
in grade school i made yours different--
i took time writing your
name & i savored the vowels--
loved you like red jolly ranchers
& chlorine skin--
kissed boxed dinosaur card before i
slipped it into your box
in the front of the classroom--
i've made it a tradition to 
leave words off valentines-- 
let's just leave it your name
& mine on the torso 
of a dying birch tree in
the park-- carve me with a butter knife
into the back of a grilled ham & cheese
sandwich-- i remember how
you tasted-- strawberry & ice cream--
i remember the worms that watched
us get married
on the playground in first grade--
the back stoop of the soda shop
that caught our bottles caps--
tell me again how we fell in 
love too fast--
tell me again how your lap
is where i watch the fireworks
in august when
we all have given up on summer--
i love you like gold fish in tomato 
soup-- like the bananas you
hid at the bottom of my Cherrios--
like a seat in a waiting room
or the psychologist i never told you
about--
i love you like the change of a bike gear
like my legs buried
in the sand-- would
you love me if i came out again
as a mermaid?
i've never wrote about this
on a valentine because
i don't remember who it
was anymore but i know 
someone had to have taught me
how to play cat's cradle--
how to stack cards to make a castle
in third grade
when the ceiling was still
tall--
this is stone slab we used
to mark the grave of a dead chicken--
the rotted out tree trunk 
where we rested to eat granola bars--
this is feeling naked 
in front of you 
& for once being unafraid--
i'm not scared to write a valentine
to anyone who doesn't
want to love me anymore--
it would take will for me not
to love you-- there's something
i remember about you
that makes me want to
savor the time it takes me 
to write your name--
take a chocolate from the box
& break again like a cordial cherry--
don't you give me a teddy-bear--
chocolate heart
helium balloon
valentine-- 
give me a picture
of what you like to remember about me
let's split another doughnut here--
rub the icing off my chin with your thumb
-- kiss me in the 
dark body of the witch tree
on top of the hill in the cemetery--
we'll elope under the leaves again--
hang upside down from the caterpillar tree
buy candy with quarter--
you caught me a crayfish
or was it a dragonfly?
today i will remember you 
for what i think about when i write
your name-- 
no one loves each other like
the scrolling font 
of valentine's day card--
suffocated in cellophane-- 
we bite people in half 
like pieces of assorted chocolates--
remember how we tasted--
knees on a back porch--
straw stuck in a blue raspberry slushie.