Reading together from a magazine,

my friend falls asleep with her

head

on my shoulder.

I turn the

pages so

quiet

ly.

 

On zoom in April we are among

the last ones left in a group chat;

her gaze drifts off

into the middle distance and

my collarbone fizzes

under a flutter of breath,

a bird’s shadow landing.

+

Cat Cotsell is a nonbinary panromantic creative generalist. Their writing can be found in Bent Street volume 3, qommunicate’s Hashtag Queer volume 2, and cicerone journal’s Canberra anthology These Strange Outcrops. They also illustrate as Cat Hesarose.