{"id":1328,"date":"2012-07-22T17:03:04","date_gmt":"2012-07-22T17:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/?p=1328"},"modified":"2017-07-11T16:52:26","modified_gmt":"2017-07-11T16:52:26","slug":"valentines-day-by-martha-hayes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/valentines-day-by-martha-hayes\/","title":{"rendered":"Valentine’s Day by Martha Hayes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Valentine’s Day<\/h1>\n

by Martha Hayes<\/p>\n

After our birthday party, I took the picture.
\nYou and your new bicycle: a shiny ten-speed
\nwhose spokes spun fireworks
\nwhen the sun caught you in flight.<\/p>\n

My new lens drew you out of that winter day.
\nMy nose pressed against the cold plastic
\nlike your first signs of womanhood
\nbehind your child-sized sweater.<\/p>\n

A ceremonious photo because
\nyears earlier you had asked me
\nwould I learn you to ride a bike,
\nour mother swept along by the new life
\nthat rolled through her, swelled her round.<\/p>\n

I sent you gently down
\nthe curl of lawn
\nsoon you flew, fear
\ngave way to passion,
\ntires spun in perfect rounds ~
\nroulette wheels you could
\nstop at will.<\/p>\n

While our mother buttered
\nstore-bought bread, trailed
\nthe stream of spilled milk, chased
\nWinter afternoons around six square
\nrooms and too many children,
\nI watched the clean spin of you,
\nfive years behind me in this whirl.<\/p>\n

Now, as a grown woman, you ask me
\nwhat it means to want for passion,
\nand the deep dark secrets that we tumble through
\nhow can we pull May out of February?<\/p>\n

I look at you
\nacross our birthday dinner, scraps
\nof foreign food, pieces of wrapping torn
\nfrom our grown-up gifts, and I cannot answer.
\nBecause, like you sister, I do not know.<\/p>\n

###
\nMartha Hayes, Professor of English at Gateway Community College in New Haven Connecticut, is a poet and essayist, whose work has appeared and is forthcoming in numerous journals and anthologies, including Freshwater, Fresh Ink, Naugatuck River Review, Vermont Literary Review, and Journey to Crone. Her poem, Ella Clare won first prize in the 2010 Altrusa International of Central Connecticut Poetry Contest. She has presented her innovative teaching ideas at worldwide conferences in countries as diverse as China, Nepal, and Brazil. An ambitious traveler, her poetry has been inspired by scenarios as varied as the jungle solitude of Mayan ruins and the claustrophobic warrens of the Medina in Fez, Morocco.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Valentine’s Day by Martha Hayes After our birthday party, I took the picture. You and your new bicycle: a shiny ten-speed whose spokes spun fireworks when the sun caught you in flight. My new lens drew you out of that winter day. My nose pressed against the cold plastic like your first signs of womanhood…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[314],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-love-poem"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1328\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/poemeveryday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}