My Bloodless Valentine

Kevin Duquette, "Drain the blood from this Valentine..." (11 Oct 2005)

When this card arrived in our mailbox it smelled like a dead fire. Kevin Duquette had cut a simple postcard out of a thin but dense piece of cardboard, written a small message and a couple of addresses, and then he drew and wrote a message on the white side of the card. He also burned the card, breaking away one of its edges into a series of scallops, and burning the face of the card (or staining it) but delicately enough so that we could still see the message. With the card so artistically smudged, the single bit of color in the petals of the pink rose rises out of a cloudy sea of brownness.

un violon d'ingres