The Perfect Heart

Scouring the beach for stones tumbled smooth,
He also looks for those in the shape of a Valentine.
So many triangles! But most without the divot up top
And rounded shoulders funneling down to a point,
The perfect heart.

He gathers all potential runners-up,
Maybe twenty or thirty that in a pinch could pass
For love tokens. But underneath seas’ clutter
The perfect heart awaits uncovering,
Another tide, another season, another year.

He shares the take with his wife, who spies the least likely,
Damaged and cockeyed like a child abused by birth,
A rough approximation of what one might select,
Proclaiming it the one she thinks will pass.

Who can forecast the choice of one with whom
One has spent more than half a lifetime,
Who can know another’s standards for the perfect heart?