Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

Valentine

"In this year was the great mortality
of birds," they noted in the chronicle.
If all kinds of winged things fell from the sky,
would quietness be more remarkable
for happening by flashes? Just today,
today you are, are beautiful. Don't wish
for more: to look like this again: why choose
to be some history? Can you fix this list:
what influences and what can be used?
Different as kissing is from being kissed.

-- Vahni Capildeo

(From the February issue of The Caribbean Review of Books)