Summer Valentine

By Lisa Zimmerman

Not sweet truffles in a box, not red berries 
in a lake of cream, not a dozen roses 
with their future wilt and fade, no candle
flickering in a corner booth. 
Just the distant hum of moonlight
entering an open window, and you
untangling my heart’s long work 
from the ribs of the day.

Lisa Zimmerman earned her MFA at Washington University in St. Louis. Her poems and short stories have appeared in many journals including Apple Valley Review, The Sun, Poet Lore, Cave Wall, Ghost Parachute, and Sweet: A Literary Confection. Her poems have been nominated for Best of the Net, the Orison Anthology, five times for the Pushcart Prize, and included in the 2020 Best Small Fictions anthology. Her poetry collections include How the Garden Looks from Here (winner of the Violet Reed Haas Award), The Light at the Edge of Everything (Anhinga Press) The Hours I Keep and Sainted (both from Main Street Rag). She’s a Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Northern Colorado.