Valentine’s Day Poetry, #3

13 Feb Valentine’s Day Poetry, #3

(editor's note: Around the Viebrock house, Valentine's Day is a high holy day. So to celebrate, we are publishing works from Telluride regional poets, Enjoy!)

Mirage

by Sandra Dorr (from Desert Water)

Years of shouting, slamming doors.

Breaking the small dishes,

leaving the room in mid-air —

vanish into the ringing mountain,

steeple-topped cupolas, a walk

on stone streets of fresh snow, dinner

in a bistro.   White lights shine,

iced pearls on the tiny streets.

This surprising tenderness when

you cup my hand in your pocket

and ask, Are you cold?

What do you want to do?

We hurry through the town.

Are you all right?

Yes.  Yes.  I am.

We're three blocks from our hotel

in air so frigid our shoes crack

the black ice of the street.

Look.  A buck and a doe,

skinny from the mountain,

nuzzle trees in a snowy yard.

They step out, prancing, framed

under the streetlight in a painting.

A new stillness fills us.

Nothing wanting, nothing to want.

Everything we have given has come back.