Sally Bliumis-Dunn

Massive and black the frigate birds, on brambles in the distance. Their bright red gular sacs, full as spinnaker sails billow from their feathers, like giant hearts of skin and air. They remind us of our own hearts, oversized and awkward, quivering in the lightest wind.

She has painted her lips hibiscus pink. The upper lip dips perfectly in the center like a Valentine heart. It makes sense to me— that the lips, the open ah of the mouth is shaped more like a heart than the actual human heart. I remember the first time I saw it— veined and shiny as the ooze of a snail— if this were what we had been taught to draw how differently we might have learned to love.