I have been practicing form
with many curls of graphite on paper
between soft blue and white lines
scratching hollow hearts in repetition
until they bend into V’s:
that very shape children turn birds into.

Careful and careless with my heart
as I am with the storm cloud of little ones
on my pages
flurried into place by my absent mind
I am absent
I am filled to my throat with smoke,
the desire to take flight,
absent in thoughts of you.

The shape of an arrowhead,
Eros’ penetrating tip.
The angle of a woman’s *******.
The bend of a wishbone ready to snap.
These could all be called
the shape of love

but my love will always be a bird too high, a V windbound,
that I will pin to my fridge with a magnet
and look at every other Sunday
when I remember it.