Laura Grace Dame

The Cardinal

Laura Grace Dame

The female cardinal knows the worth of her name leathery, toothpick toes clenched around a holly branch, productive in the stillness of sitting. Amidst the hounds-tooth breezes, tugging at her feathers finger by finger, she puffs up her warm-toned feathers and manages to look snug.

Military eyes, wise beak, unwavering tail, she is never-ending and never-endingly too short; one minute she’s there, resolute and pristine, the next, a tree mourning its loss. Her absence weeps the pain of the world, The sound of her wings: the sketch of an ending.

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