I go home to the island when the waters rise. New spring air to strip the skin, to kiss. Turn of wrist and ankle. The cardinal a herald, my own voice doom-trumpet, the breaking of the seal.
An end, an end. A sort of anniversary—soft words for a condemnation—I set my clocks by the days in which you feast on your heart. Another possibility chipped away and another, the shape beneath emerging gradually, as glaciers are formed.
Diana Hurlburt is a librarian, writer, and terminal Floridian in upstate New York. Selections of her short work have appeared in Luna Station Quarterly, phoebe, and March Xness '21, as well as the Worldweaver Press anthologies Equus and Clockwork, Curses & Coal. Her mini chapbook Nothing Natural is now available from Sword & Kettle Press. When not wrangling student employees or helping kids find unicorn books, she's usually talking about iced coffee on Twitter @menshevixen.