The Origami Heart

THE ORIGAMI HEART / Susan Ludvigson Can the heart be folded like paper? I saw it, the four corners making four points facing a center, the beginning of something. Hard to think of it flat and white, though how it flattens and fades is easy enough. I am touched by the words of a man I don't know. He heard the woman he loves on the phone to her other lover. He still sees her face as it was when he entered the room. It stays there, like the moon through the nearest window, even on cloudy nights, so that when he comes into the kitchen he sees her again even if she's in bed asleep. My moon is a sliver I can't see. It's rained all day. But two nights ago it was crescent, the shape of a folded wing. Bodiless, it hovered above my dreams, above my heart imagining itself a white bird sent sailing. 48 · The Missouri Review ...