There are several V's in my daughter's drawing.
One is a gable and the rest are birds
flying off into a spiky yellow
sunset she's coloring in on the kitchen table.

From where I sit across from her, writing
a check to the Hartford Federal Mortgage
Corporation, the birds are houses
and the house is a large bird, a vertical triangle

from eaves to ridge, ready to take off
at the drop of a letter, rooftop flapping
over the treetops to Hartford, Connecticut. . .

I sign the check as she signs the picture
in the bottom right-hand corner, and the birds
migrate softly into my hands as she gives me
the house. For keeps. No strings attached

to the birds which could also be houses,
or the sun which could also be time
running out, going down like a diminishing
crayon stub still eking out, incredibly,
enough yellow to warm a house 30 years.

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by Paul Hostovsky

Paul Hostovsky's poems appear widely online and in print. He has been featured on Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and The Writer's Almanac. He has two chapbooks, Bird in the Hand (Grayson Books) and Dusk Outside the Braille Press (Riverstone Press). He works in Boston as an interpreter for the deaf.

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© 2007 Paul Hostovsky