Art Lessons

She tried to teach me to draw

once, a gift of charcoal

and a sketchbook, a gift of love,

but my doodling never progressed past that,

just doodles drawn in a math class

I couldn’t master, either, broad circles

and lines and shapes resembling nothing

but what they were, circles and lines

and shapes, doodling, trying to draw

what I couldn’t picture, couldn’t understand,

didn’t know, the various shades and shadows

and light cast, giving form beyond a doodle.

Love was like that, too, shades and shadows,

light cast, giving it a form I couldn’t grasp.