Poet Laura: Month of Fevers

Month of fevers, my friend Michele calls February, referring to its Latin origins. It can be a fraught month of foul weather and seasonal colds and flu. It’s a short month, but filled with special days beginning on February first with National Dark Chocolate Day, then Groundhog as Weatherman on the second. For me, February is the month of love and chocolate. Because of candy, my mother loved Valentine’s Day. She was partial to pecan roll, and milk chocolates, in the white box, with the kindly Mrs. See keeping watch from the lid. Mother hid the candy from my little brother so he wouldn’t get into it and share with the neighborhood kids. Or so she said. That was an excuse, because she hid her stash even after my brother grew up and left home, and long after I eschewed milk chocolate for more interesting dark chocolate squares. Though I didn’t like milk chocolate, I did love chocolate milk, and that helped me through one of the hardest times of my life, soon after my father died.

Chocolate Milk

That day I feared
I’d never stop crying,
my tears a torrent
taking me out to sea,
Dr. Helene asked, what soothed me
as a sad, and scared, small kid.
Chocolate milk, I said.
Drink that, she said.
Drink until you stop the crying.

I drove to the drive-in dairy,
bought a can of chocolate syrup
and a gallon of milk,
and drank, and drank, and drank,
until my life was sweet
enough to greet my children
skipping through the door from school.

—Donna Hilbert, from Enormous Blue Umbrella

Perhaps Jim Lewis has the right idea. Being too picky limits one’s options.

chocoholic

time was
i had to know
is the swirl with two stripes
a nut or a cream
now i dream
milks and darks and semi-sweets
pass the box and i’ll eat
anything
that isn’t wrapper

—Jim Lewis

What a lovely gift poet Betsy Mars’s mother gave her with the first breath of life, a valentine birthday, while avoiding an unlucky day.

Triskaidekaphobia

So many hearts and none
anatomical: small boxes
and pendants, ceramic
and amethyst, fused glass,
and silver, gold. Paper-
weights, jackets festooned
in pink and hotter pink.
Mugs. Mugs. Mugs.
And my mother’s heart

when on that night
I dropped, water bursting
before its time. Three weeks
early, she held me in one more day,
confined in her narrow hospital bed,
birthing a story as well as me,
my life framed in hearts and love,
or at the very least, the idea
of it, a messenger delivering me
arrows that graze me every birthday.

—Betsy Mars, first published in ONE ART: a Journal of Poetry

Then there is the great joy of new love when you least expect it! After 17 years, I still like the sight of him. We met while walking our dogs. Our dogs loved each other too.

New

That time in the park
at the end of the street

our dogs off leash
and we are off leash too

our love so new
we kiss and kiss

not caring for once
who sees us

what might be said
or be construed.

—Donna Hilbert, from Enormous Blue Umbrella

Your Turn

What is your favorite gift to give? What is you favorite gift to receive? There are many forms of love and devotion—what might you give?

Post and post images by Donna Hilbert. Featured image by rumpleteaser, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Poems used with permission.

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Donna Hilbert

Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Enormous Blue Umbrella, Moon Tide Press, 2025. Work has appeared in journals and broadcasts including Eclectica, Gyroscope, Rattle, Sheila Na Gig, ONE ART, Verse Daily, Vox Populi, Tweetspeak Poetry, The Writer’s Almanac, and anthologies including Boomer Girls, The Widows’ Handbook, The Poetry of Presence I & II, The Path to Kindness, The Wonder of Small Things, Love is For All of Us. She writes and leads workshops from her home base in Long Beach, California. (Author photo credit Nathaniel Gutman.)

Latest posts by Donna Hilbert (see all)

• Poet Laura: Written in March - March 4, 2026
• Poet Laura: Month of Fevers - February 13, 2026
• Poet Laura: January Field Notes - January 7, 2026