For All The Lovely Ladies Poem by John W. McEwers

The world is a dangerous, nasty place.
You go to Siberia in the Winter,
You become an icy mess of death.
You go to Siberia in the Summer,
You face mosquitoes and brown bears and most likely become a miserable bundle of bug bites and maleria and fear left hiding in a tree hoping not to be eaten.

And so the calendar reads February.
Fourteenth.
Heart shaped day written in red faux-crayon on a grid surrounded by arrows and angels.
It is a day of war like the Dresden fire bombing if you are not lucky enough to be young or attractive or taken.
It is a nasty, dangerous place in the middle of a nasty, dangerous month early into a year that promises to resemble the world to which it belongs.

I'm buying flowers.
Lots of them.
And if I have ever seen you enter your place of work as I visit my doctor or dentist or lawyer or stock broker or masseuse's office you can expect them.
One red rose.
One for each of you.
Because I can't afford that many dozen roses to treat you all with the respect you rightfully deserve.