Valediction

By Victoria Bird

She is buttoning her silk shirt over shivering flesh when the tightness closes around her throat. A whip’s feathered kiss. The ticklish snarl of a cheese wire. The heft of apology in a string of pearls. Perhaps he is dying somewhere, and that threadbare touch is the last of his grip. An affectionate farewell in the brush of his fingertips. One last bloom of purple and red.