Preset Image Valentine
Intimacy these days discomforts. More our style is the park or the pub, or three-minded chess with young Kasparov. A bracket-dash-colon smile implies we have no longings to confess. Always, though, I’ll text a bunch of preset flowers on the eve of her six-month scan. ‘Thank you, dear heart, for remembering.’ Then come the hours of worry (agony for her) before the all-clear. Valentine’s the patron saint of squirm for us both, love’s wafer on the tongue a poisoned biscuit. The troubadour-lover worth his sugar composes a romantic effusion of the kind she’d be loath to wipe her derrière with. Dare I risk it? I text her a preset pint pot, foaming with roses.