A Valentine Abroad

Anxiety courses through your eyes

Like the blood in your veins

Pulsing from your arms to your thighs.

We’re long past growing pains.

Across the Atlantic to the Dead Sea,

I ask, “Will you be my Valentine?”

Face scorched by the salt and allergy,

Red as paper hearts laced on twine,

You say, “Of course,” and that is that.

As I write this in the late-morning light,

You are in the dark, upon a mat,

Politely drinking coffee into the night.

I miss having you home,

But I know you love to roam.