I crumpled up the miserable attempt at poetry, and tossed it into the waste basket. I had no idea why I’d even thought I could write in rhyme and meter. Every time I tried, it came out sounding forced -- almost as if it belonged on a Burma Shave sign. Burma Shave was absent from roadsides long before I was born, but perhaps if they’d still been around, I wouldn’t have trashed the poem. I’d have sent it to them.

I wasn’t trying to write a poem to sell, anyway. I was trying to write a poem for Cosette. That’s what I called her, though her real name was Jennifer. Jennifer wasn’t a French name, though. Victor Hugo never wrote a character named Jennifer into one of his novels. I’d read all of his novels, I knew. So I called Jennifer, “Cosette.” She called me, “Marius.” It was a compromise really. I originally tried calling her, “Esmeralda,” but when she started calling me, “Quasi,” I knew we were going to have to change that.

It was February 13th already. I needed a poem to put on the inside of a card I had purchased at a Hallmark store. I’d bought a blank card, with a picture of roses on the front. Cosette liked roses. I knew that, because for the past several weeks, whenever we’d meet at a nearby coffeeshop for lunch, she’d look inside the window of a flowershop next door and say, “I love looking at roses, they’re so beautiful.” Every time.

All my friends warned me Valentine’s Day was important to girls. This guy in Data Processing suggested I write her a poem. That was why I was at home on a Friday night, trying to compose a poem for my Cosette. I emailed her during the day and told her I would be unable to meet her at Mama Italiano’s for dinner; I had to work late. But I told her I had a surprise for her for tomorrow. Now I had to write her the poem. I decided to try free verse:

This too got crumpled and trashed. The doorbell rang, and I paid the pizza delivery guy. After eating the pizza, I looked at the clock. I knew this wasn’t going to work. I went to my bookshelf, and removed a volume. I knew there had to be a poem in there I could use. Victor Hugo was probably the best writer of poetry in French history, so I found something of his I liked.

I wrote it in English, though, so Cosette would understand it. I gave the card to her last night. Her response was not at all what I had expected. At first I thought the tears were the same as those I have had at times when reading Hugo. But I realized that was not the case when she tore the card in half. I don’t think there’s a man out there who has learned to understand the behavior of a female.

(1) from Les Miserables. "Violets are blue. Roses are Red. Violets are blue. I love my love."