For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.
–Geoffrey Chaucer, Parlement of Foules
This is not
a love poem.
Sirens
sound outside
my downtown window:
another broken
heart.
Street lights burn
into mid-February
dark, remember Indian
summer afternoons.
The sirens stop.
In the silence leftover,
your pulse, slowed.
Hope hides
breathing low & fast between
the river and the
dying with its secrets
freckled
into the skin
of bare city shoulders.
A soldier
makes his way
uphill from Main
Street station, red
blossoms
stark
against desert camo.
There is no
snow, today.
A good day
for wing-ed
homecomings,
if one hungers
for such things.
Joanna Suzanne Lee 
A great retrospective piece showing not all valentine’s day have been times to celebrate
It makes you want to cherish these moments more
thank you for putting today into perspective.
🙂
Nice post. Thanks
I learned to read Chaucer aloud with a fairly accurate accent. Mastering Middle and Old English spelling helps as these later styles train for the earlier Chaucerian tone and recognize this particular spelling to get the words right.
nice joanna….i like the contrast in the sirens and the silence…and the stanza immediately after that is tight…between the river and the dying…nice….lots of great texture in this…i like…
Not always as lovey dovey as one thinks, great capture and showing another side!
You’ve created a very stark and graphic series of pictures here, very compact, nothing extra do divert from the impact. Each stanza both stands on its own and helps build to that excellent windup. Very fine piece
This poem pulls you in …. I can see the death and hope hiding like a fugitive…. oh man this poem ROCKS….
A great write, Joanna !
Your line breaks always get me. Always sharp, and they just assist the imagery wonderfully.
Nice work here.
Stark, winter, no doily frills here. This is as clear as cold air on a freezing sunny day. Not all is joy, but nothing more original than “breathing low & fast between/ the river and the/dying with its secrets/freckled/into the skin/of bare city shoulders.” Excellent