Late February is a tease, a come hither thrown over the shoulder of an appealing stranger in a crowd--a hip cock from an insouciant teenager. It's the warm breath of an almost-kiss, an already-broken promise from an unrepentant sinner.
Late February knows no moral bounds; it's a trust-funder ever at leisure, uncaring at the change of weather or the stock market or the law. Late February is a short season of caprice: a temptor with a bedroom-eye on the prize... a dangerously attractive schizophrenic capable of both astonishing ire and lazy charm, often one within moments of the other.
Late February is a liar, this I know. It woos with warm mornings and birdsong. It's a wronged lover still powerful, the kind who slips benignly back into your life emitting the heady perfume of the past and then snaps out, fangs exposed, to bring blood.
Late February makes promises of yellow daffodil and blue sky, of skin exposed and sun on an upturned face. Late February is a fifteen year-old lacking control of his hormones. It's not his fault; he can't help it.
Late February is a Greek god casting ancient dice onto the human table. It's a toddler pulling the ears of her ever-patient dog, a preteen in a dandelion field. He loves me, he loves me not.
Late February is the relative who hurts you most, because you love him enough to allow it. A Janus-faced friend bringing both the shade and the sun, and to enter each is to feel a fire, hot or cold depending.
It's not that Late February can't decide whom to be, friend or foe, winter or spring. It simply likes having power over the toss.
