St. Valentine, Bishop of Terni, probably beheaded, was also the patron saint of asthma, beekeepers, and epilepsy, so he might have said
love in the time of COVID is no different than
love at any other time: that is, full of loneliness.
Only more so. Pre-COVID, there were possibilities:
clandestine meetings at Trader Joe’s, Fisk’s Jubilee
Singers’ Balm in Gilead at Tuesdays’ pancake suppers.
All attempted All for naught. Post-COVID, love will still
be a hungry disciple with her wimple being what it always
was; her overcoat continuing to thin in all the places it was
already thinning; her outline identical to that surrounding
a bloodhound, run over. And even that outline will dissolve.
Some say that among COVID’s symptoms are a loss of
taste, a loss of smell. And the love loss during this COVID-
without-end emits the stink of Valentine’s remains stashed
in reliquaries, a bitter taste of beetroot laid on his holy table.
Copyright © 2023 by Lynne Thompson. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on February 16, 2023, by the Academy of American Poets.
“I began drafting this poem—originally titled ‘in the time of’—in February 2021, when the COVID pandemic was at its height and physical connections were almost non-existent. Upon receiving Patricia Smith’s invitation, I decided to revisit it and, in doing so, began to look at St. Valentine’s biography. I thought I could give a nod to him and his many professions and purported mode of death in the poem’s title while keeping the rest mostly true to its original intent. I suppose it’s more of an anti-love poem.”
—Lynne Thompson
Lynne Thompson
Lynne Thompson is the author of Fretwork (Marsh Hawk Press, 2019). A recipient of an Individual Artist Award from the City of Los Angeles where she lives, Thompson was appointed the city’s poet laureate in 2021.