My Funny Valentine

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My Funny Valentine

The heart is offered but by a doll?
This surely cannot be reciprocal
for to proffer mine in open hand
would be more than a matter
of stitches undone and a probe inside.
To find and present the bloody pump,
bathed in gore and so unlike
your clean and spotless version,
would be the end of me, you see,
and render the gift an unwanted curse
and corpse disposal a heavy burden.
No, it’s symbolic, of course,
a statement from an unknown admirer,
and no answering gesture expected.
It makes an unusual valentine,
denoting, I suppose, devotion unrelenting,
but what worries me is not the heart
but that mask above, faceless,
pale, with eyes torn from sockets
to leave fathomless pits bleeding
incarnadine to cheeks and hair.
Am I so vile that, to avoid the sight,
you must empty your vision forever?
That seems a little, shall we say,
extreme? Passion leads to actions strange
but sanity lives in reason, I think.
Best If I do sneak away
and pretend I never saw this.


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