The Black Truth

by KAITLIN KERR

We are rhyming couplets
Or should be
Or once were . . .

I preemptively miss the possibility of stroking your grey hair—
tucking it behind your ear with foreheads pressed together

after bedside reading, I nest close . . . and closer,
not saying I’m trying to know you by osmosis

There are shards of glass in my heart tonight, I say casually
risking to find you by echolocation—your eyes still brutally blue

Your heartbeat on my cheek is not the home we’d made
My shadow falls where last I felt your trace—

I wait upon my cue: the closing of a door—
a sudden gasp; a dying breath . . .

I am your common haunt, home for your ghost
(who corrects me still if I misuse transposed)

For the first time in months, I sip whisky alone,
follow it with tea . . . because we used to

We is a lump in my throat
I try to clear with warm elixir . . .

Weighing costs of exorcism, I swallow hard.
You shift your feet . . . eyes brutally blue and scarred

The final drop of Moroccan mint with lemon hits
the bottom of the honeyed cup—a tarnished penny, tossed

with desperation for just one more sip, My Heart—
another and another, till we . . .

Kaitlin Kerr is a nurse, actress, and writer. She holds degrees in both English Literature and Nursing. Much of her work grows out of the reality of living with a rare chronic pain disorder and finding true meaning in art, beauty, and connection with others. Some of her recent work can be found in Pif magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, the Voices from the Attic anthology, and Goat Farm Poetry Society’s zine anthology.