Apology: A Valentine

by Ann E. Michael

For years I have held February

answerable to many sorrows

as though the month itself

were responsible for its appearance:

dour days too short, long nights

steeped in frosty bitterness.

Resigned to hibernation,

I claimed February made me sleepy,

dulled my skin, sucked dream

into a cold vacuum

like a vacant acre of outer space,

a stony-hearted month. 

But today I watch a small herd

of yearling deer file gingerly beside

the hedgerow over crusted snow

and sense a thaw within.

The days, brief, nonetheless begin

their shadowy stretch into spring.

Owls urge themselves toward mating,

their querying calls strung

along night’s bare branches;

buzzards return from foraging

the more southerly dead, skunks

break dormancy; sometimes,

the hellebore blooms. 

I have been observing February

from all the wrong angles.

This is not the wild greening

of April nor the fragrant abundance

of June, but it deserves better

than repudiation or scorn:

Lace and paper, the color red

although unseasonable,

sweet words that don’t mean much—

nonetheless—

To February, which has given me much

besides unhappiness, I offer my apology. 

Ojo de Deo 

by Ann E. Michael

I was a child in the flat dry. New to me: red dust and burros,

bodies of dead scorpions, flat, dry, translucent: death made small. 

I said prayers, climbed exactly as high as my fears, stung.

I was a child with a child-brain and a god’s-eye, indian paintbrush— 

A child, praying. In the surprise of cool adobe: inward shadows

on the dim insides. Whitewashed library, dense smell of words, Bibles. 

Pinyons bent me secrets. I scouted arroyos, watched Pedernal

watching me, bruise-purple, its shape an ache imprinted on my tongue. 

I drew my fingers through orange dust with that mesa on my back.

Knowing I would carry it home, its eye on me. Speaking of it still, oh god. 

*****

Ann E. Michael lives in Pennsylvania. Her fourth solo chapbook, The Capable Heart, was published in January by FootHills Publishing. Her work has appeared in Ninth Letter, Painted Bride Quarterly, Natural Bridge, ISLE and in numerous online journals, such as Mezzo Cammin and SNReview. Her website is www.annemichael.com