Our Breakup by Jennifer Hurley The afternoon air smells of summer rain, almost overpowering the reek of bacon and onion fried early for the German potato salad that you love. I cook in the morning so the flavors will grow more distinct after having time to settle and melt into each other how we once did. We once did. Before disappearing for work you used to leave notes under your coffee mug, the paper stained brown from little spills—a watercolor of a white-spotted deer’s hide. I always imagined a fawn, your handwritten words crossed legs standing for the first time, clumsy wobbly. But last night when I tried to care for you, checked mangy fur for ticks and signs of other disease, your natural camouflage soon hid you in a thick part of the forest, a forest I continue to search, now falling asleep cold alone in a pile of knotty pine branches and slippery sodden leaves. Bio: Jennifer Hurley received an M.A. in Liberal Studies, Concentration: English, from ...
Flying Island is the Online Literary Journal of the Indiana Writers Center, accepting submissions from Midwest residents and those with significant ties to the Midwest.