my carcass cloak
in advance of these joys
spent withering
like some lone rose
reaching 
across the divide
of soul

i implore the nothingness
that is my future form
a construct of
undoing
this receding proof
of what once was
a breeze of surreptitious
kisses of ivory
iron a plague of
longing

this body

shared between us
a primitive feather
twitching 
the clouds retreat
and i with them

…

Ulrica Hume is the author of An Uncertain Age, a novel, and House of Miracles, a collection of stories, one of which was selected by PEN and broadcast on NPR. Her work appears online, in literary journals, and in anthologies. Find her @uhume.bsky.social