[RCL]

I see that several of the current Met posts are about loving dogs, cats, and a cantering horse, a handful Darwin liked, plus insight into cattle’s prescient and punny epiphany about their barbecuing. And there are always a few about those of our own species: beloved men and women. Add your Valentines, pro-and-or-con, if you like (the exercise has several predecessors).

Our Lie Ins

I love our lies about

Who loves the other more
Who best instructs our child
Who sticks to what we swore
Who was the first beguiled

Whose jokes are corniest
Who listens to the other
Which of us chose best
Why we’ll stay together

When we lie together

[Gail White]

From the anthology Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle:

The Overview

My greatest love, a Persian cat,
arrived when I was twenty-two.
I wouldn't have expected that

I'd fall in love in seconds flat
with eyes of enigmatic blue.
My greatest love, a Persian cat,

refuted the old caveat:
Cat-love is not, like dog-love, true.
I wouldn't have expected that

she'd choose my lap for habitat,
but year by year her kindness grew.
My greatest love, a Persian cat,

outlasted many a fine male rat
including, my false darling, you.
(I wouldn't have expected that).

And so I find, while working at
My Life and Loves: An Overview,
my greatest love: a Persian cat.
I wouldn't have expected that.

[RCL]

Gail,

And who would have expected such a delightful love-charged Villanelle!

[RCL]

A Sirius Valentine

She’s Nature’s art in full disgrace
beginning with her longing face.
Below her bangs the eyebrows mate,
her eyes are runny, teeth like slate.
Her ears, unlike smooth tiny seashells,
swing a lot like misshaped cowbells.
Her twitching nose is ski-slope long
and never has inspired a song.
With lips severely under-drawn
and tongue that yaps from dusk to dawn,
with sour breath to make one reel,
this is one gal no one would steal.
But I’m a pooch who loves her smile
when we’re romancing doggy style.

From Dogs R Us

[RCL]

Love Struck

Cupid’s strikes are random treasure,
lasting gifts of painful pleasure.


From Asses of Parnassus

[RCL]

Couples

One complains
One explains