My sister scrubs sand off of calcium carbonate like lyrics—the tune always hiding at the base of her tongue when she looks at me.
A tiger’s cry, arched stripes: my bod(y/ies) curl(s) inwards on kitchen floors of glorified twilight. Each chamber cradles its predecessor. There is a reason humans have a way of becoming spoons. Time does too. Fibonacci’s perennial staircase, my optical illusion. Her eyes say
it’s a descent, sometimes to car(e/ry).
My sister brushes her locket aside, lends the shell her rhythms like a deity casts vellum molds with whispered breaths—awaits.
She is a violet crescent on the waterfront: jumpsuit-moon mobilizing tidal froth, dripping salt like a phoneme swallowed in the decrescendo of its own word. She always leaves shells where she finds them. At dawn she returns, a girl now, asking me if it is too late.
Danae Younge is an award-winning biracial and bisexual poet who attends Occidental College as a rising sophomore. Her work has been internationally recognized by such publications as Bacopa Literary Review, Salamander Magazine, Invisible City Literary Journal, The Curator, and over twenty others as well as five worldwide print anthologies. Website: danaeyounge.com; Instagram: @danae_celeste_.