Hallmark Cards
James W. Reynolds
​
Hallmark has nice sentiments,
but they meander the gentle slopes
of meadows laced with buttercups
pollinated by crisp dollar bills.
And we are too smart for the platitudes
of enterprises that print treacle for profit.
 
At least that’s what William and Mary say.
Though they annually ask us for money,
so they would say that anyway.
 
There is also no denying the obvious:
we have been lucky - so far.
 
Though we have stumbled on rocky trails,
slipped on slick foothills
and blundered over blue ridges,
we’ve never had to scale the Himalayas.
 
So while there have been obstacles,
we have overcome them hand in hand.
 
But perhaps that is simply
the Hallmark card in me speaking -
the one that blithely assumes
our journey has been one and the same.
 
Maybe your path has been different.
 
Maybe you climb Himalayan peaks everyday.
 
Maybe I am being foolish and insecure.
 
But that exhausted look on your face
suggests you ran uphill for miles today
while I walked meters on smooth linoleum.
 
Then there are these scattered scraps of paper -
fuzzy phrases that spawn insipid poems
parading my mostly muddled thoughts on everything.
You can find them everywhere.

And then there's you
Furtively writing in a diary
I can never find.
And I have looked everywhere.