"Say Nothing, Lover"

[butterflydreaming]

Title taken from a previous poem.
This is my 2nd annual Valentine Sonnet, with the same percentage of fiction as last year's.


Silence is a valentine I can give,
keeping affection secret and discreet,
Telling none of occasions that we meet,
and to questions, my answers evasive,

or with truth laid out coyly, deceptive.
Romance is a manufactured conceit
with lust, desire, and envy replete,
Conquest as the concealed objective.

Stubbornly I disdain to play that game
or call this thing between us by Love's name,

Seeing it diminished to a token,
treated as evidence, public display,
for three words we are expected to say,
for three pale pink words, hastily spoken.