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Michael Todd Steffen is the author of two books of poetry, most recently On Earth As It Is (Cervena Barva Press, 2022). He is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship and an Ibbetson Street Press Poetry Award. His poems have appeared in journals including The Boston Globe, Constellations, Synchronized Chaos, The Lyric, The Dark Horse, and The Poetry Porch.

Michael Todd Steffen

The Other Saint’s Day

On a message background in the spectrum
between taffy and magenta, with our cloven
crested symbol of a heart a lot like
embarrassment raised in the air, blindsidin
as love itself, for those especially
this day asleep with nothing sweet for love’s
salivation, like saints with hair-cloth scratch marks
at collarbone and knee (and elbow’s
erasure of its reminder for us to bend);
for trance guide, realty agent, gravedigger—
my kiss that would sting to tears
if not theirs, sting my love-long eyes
and hold firm the unshielded hug one pulse
beyond their pull-away; as my critic pulls
away from this poem; as I call on Love
the poets have declaimed; to come at least
(as if 364 days in a year were not enough
to square off on my agenda) one Valentine
playing in the range and feel of a pianoforte,
with its percussion enough, for you, you, you
about my thoughts, vibrant, woven, mine.

— Michael Todd Steffen

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