Kathryn Anita Loynes


VALENTINE (FUNNY HOW WE ASSUMED)

Funny how we assumed no one else would find
Valentine's Day at the Beer Garden,
belting out off-key "Hey Jude"s and
"Really Love Your Peaches, Wanna Shake Your Tree."
Of course we realize that the six of us
will remain at picnic tables and feminist excuses
until we're thirty --
continue to have crushes on Tom Petty,
drink root beer in Styrofoam cups,
and dance to rock-a-billy on table tops
until old, inebriated men stop winking at us,
and we finally marry one of them.

Odd how I thought
we could sit out here undisturbed,
impervious to the questioning
on the whereabouts of boyfriends,
or lack thereof.
We laughed when the waiter complained
about a man who ruined the fourteenth of February
for every male in 1905
by selling himself out to an advertising scheme
and fifty-dollar roses.
At one point we wish we could be
the drunk man at the pool table,
taking every shot with reckless aim.

The time comes to return to our cars
when a fourteen-year-old
doesn't look so bad
and the jukebox has been tricked
into more blues than the Bud Light posters.

Funny how now all I want to do
is go home and cut my hair.



Date of Birth: January 26, 1984
Location: Houston, Texas
Email: kalgoal00@hotmail.com







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