ONE FOR VALENTINE'S DAY

THE ARRIVAL OF A LONG AWAITED LOVE LETTER

The day starts no different from any other.

Slow surfacing of awareness,

as she sprawls on her raft of a bed,

in a room, in a house, in a street,

that she can’t escape.

She slumps, unrepentant,

warming into the day,

deaf to pleas from household chores

till the postie stomps past.

She had waited endless days, but

that day her tattered heart skips

at the soft plop of a letter landing.

She fingers the crisp, slim shape with slow strokes,

tracing where he’d written her name.

Desire erupts;

shuddering fingers rupture paper seams.

Soon, soon, he wrote, they’d be together.

He was coming to stay.

He would love her forever.

Glittering bubbles of joy

make their way, like pilgrims,

to the shrine of her needs.


                                          Teagan Kearney