Valentine’s Poem for Mid-May

The red foil shines
and the blinding light
is February to your soul.

Fat fingers fumble the treat,unfold it,
and the silver of a Hershey’s Kiss
plates the other side.
But there’s no chocolate here.
Just another red wrapper, gleaming
in the sun. Under it, more silver,
more red. Again silver; again red.

They’ve cut down the forest,
Lincoln-logged the wood around you.
You can smell the matches from a mile off
but don’t remember what you wanted to say
when next you saw him.

Fold up the foil; make
a crane. A thousand of them.
Make ships too valuable to sail,
too silly to sink. Leave them
on a park bench.

Remember them
once they’re gone.