Aseem Kaul

A POEM FOR VALENTINE’S DAY

I swore I wouldn’t write
a poem today.

Instead, I decided,
I would do my taxes.

So here I am, receipts
scattered across the floor
like forgotten letters,
stacks of dates that refuse

to add up, and a heart
that keeps trying to
calculate just what the last
year has cost it; how much
it can get away with;
what, if anything, it is owed.

—from Rattle #28, Winter 2007