Blood-red hearts, fluff and tinsel.
I met a guy on the heath,

Chocolate coated strawberry-cups.
the wind-swept, sandy heath,

Tin-foil balloon, glitter, ribbon,
in a faded rugby shirt, counting butterflies,

saccharin verse, crude joke …

his valentine’s not here.

His valentine’s in popping gorse seed

on the sun-hot side of the Mynd,

inscribed on an ancient oak in bark runes,

woven in lovers’ knots of sleepy adders

curled on heather between Moss pools.

Pairs of brimstone dance it, rising

weaving under beech leaf canopies.

It’s lettered on the latticed heath moth’s wing.

For it was in those places, it was in that company,

that he let me have his heart to hold.