Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day

Take this bunch of words, knowing that
over your shoulder is another reader, and
another and another hoping to find the code
that lays all bare. Each one will pull at every
word like children pulling petals off a rose:
He loves me (not), they say but as they say
the rose is gone.

You saw these words ten years ago
and ten years hence you watched them
decompose and recompose.
You will hear them as a child having
grown old
never quite knowing what they mean, if
they mean. Who hides their meaning?
You will receive this bunch of words
one day, and then
ask why.