I’M CARRYING A TORCH (ON VALENTINE’S DAY)

by Lynda Gene Rymond

I’m carrying a torch—
not on a candy heart,
not on a Hallmark card,
not on a clusterfuck of balloons.
 
It’s a real torch, spitting sparks,
heading straight for fourth grade
or whenever this monstrosity
took hold on my little life.
 
Shoeboxes lavishly decorated
with construction paper hearts
in the compulsory pinks and reds,
lavenders and purples.
 
Our names in paint or glitter
above a gingerly cut slit,
mailboxes for all the valentines
posted in time for the party.
 
Room mothers brought cupcakes,
soda punch, boxes of crunchy hearts—
I’m yours, too sweet, oooh la la!
(these flame out nicely in candy colors.)
 
Now the tally. Who got the most? 
Who got the least, again? Who needs to go
to the restroom to flush the crumbs
of a nine-year-old’s self-esteem?
 
Be your own crush! I’ll shout as
I swagger in with my torch ablaze
(Have you ever watched crepe paper burn?)
Forget this shitshow! (New vocabulary word, 
 
shitshow!) No more Valentines! 
No more walking around
with your beating hopeful heart
clenched in your fist.
 
I’m carrying a torch for you, kid,
until you can carry it for yourself.

Lynda Gene Rymond is an author and poet residing in Applebachsville, Pa, where she tends goats, chickens, honeybees and a massive food garden.

HOPE

by Sandra Anfang

“Hope and Justice” by David Garibaldi

is not the thing with feathers bickering at the feeder

bullying the finches into flight

 

nor the Hallmark card, faded from decades of cliché

shoved in the back of the dollar store rack

 

Hope is not the white dove flying from the open hymnal

like a pop-up book, nor the blond god on 

 

nana’s closet door smiling from his ruby throne.

It’s not the inscription on the hand-drawn

 

sign buried in roses at the site of the latest

black man’s murder by the men in blue

 

nor the Christian Covid patient emoting from

his ICU bed, hoarding oxygen and prayers

 

while millions of deniers chorus no,

we won’t go to vaccine clinics.

 

Hope is not the promised land behind

a child’s eyes when she mouths on bended knee

 

bless mommy and daddy and

all the creatures in the sea.

 

Is hope the force that pulls us from our beds

when the world seems to have given up?

 

Is it the hands that brew the coffee, steep the tea

debate existence with our feline friends

 

hands that kindle the ritual of another day

as if our time were endless here.

 

Sandra Anfang is a poet, editor, poetry teacher, and visual artist. She’s the author of Looking Glass Heart and Road Worrier (Finishing Line Press, 2016 and 2018) and Xylem Highway (Main Street Rag, 2019) and the founder of Rivertown Poets in Petaluma, CA. Since Covid overtook our lives, she alternates between binging on statistics and walking and writing to allay her fears.