February 14.1
When St Valentine came to the States he found work in a meat-packing plant living with some Slavs in a tenement just beyond the stockyards. Blue-eyed, stout, he broke down carcasses daily and the vagaries of a new language, naming his children things like Jenny and Fred and coming home smelling of offal and blood until Valentin became Valent became William, shedding the weight he had gained as a new-eyed baby— the crimson name of […]
OPTIONAL POETRY 