If you were here, I’d tell you how the priest
disobeyed cruel Claudius, marrying
lovers, though the emperor had released
no one from his law, its weight carrying
men to war. And the price the priest paid:
bones crushed by clubs; a blade-severed head.
But, oh, before then, how soft words he said
to the jailer’s daughter--poems he read
her by candlelight--filled her with bright tears.
How hands touched through bars, making bodies flame.
How their vow, to never forget, for years
would allow her to live alone, their fame
leading lovers to share the final line
of his last, brief note: “From Your Valentine.”
Roger Armbrust
