kerri lee

new shit.

i still get the tingling in my feet sometimes
quaking with the memory of how i walked you
to your grave

when the last breath was pushed out of you
there were no final words
only your hand in the air
finger-painting the outline of my jaw

we met in 53
a whirlwind of oppression plunging my neck line
unhinging the steel in my speech

but we kept a safety net
between our heels

you always caught the mill of their abuse

fought to make sure their words
swinging like a tetherball
did not wrap it’s chord around my throat

they could not imagine the other side of me
how 40 years later i would be tending to your hinges
as if the creaking in your frame
was any indication
of how the nails stripped

how loyalty to your own body
meant nothing

it was impossible to hold hands with you
they were clammy
stained grass
cold clay

you said mine were sapphire
ironed wax
baby powder

and those things just don’t mix

so i would push them
fat with water
onto the burnt part of your neck

i can still hear you now:
“doctor”
“yes, baby”
“doctor, can you feel somethin’? I mean I know it’s there. i think it’s spreadin’.”

i carry a field of wilting things in my lap
like paper napkins at a fancy dinner party

i know what its like to be soft on all sides

an unscrupulous reminder
this aftertaste
is of the yellowed part of an egg
drywall cracking
mama
mama
bassinet concave
baby
lover

i catch your grey hairs salted
on my funeral clothes

find the centrum silver
sitting in the cupboard

tastes too much like snakeskin to finish
something you left behind

there are features
i feel i’ve already forgotten
the hair patterns on your stomach
the width of your wrists
how many scars you keep
i used to search for them
like lumps in a water bed

you woke me
in the middle of night
alligators gnawing on your muscles like pork fat
i hear the sizzling when you sleep-talk

We were a wishbone
God was sitting in my blind-spot
pulling us apart
wondered what to do with my smaller half
other than keep it in my wallet
with the receipts
a ticket to go next

when there was no disease to play scapegoat
i was left blaming the kitchen tiles we picked out
i was only 24.
i am sorry.

when i lay there now
a cooled pattern of a widow
i understand why you let me pick the floral print
other than because you know how stubborn i can be

dying from old age
is like duck tape
stuck to the finest hairs of your body
time is trying to be careful
slowly ripping it
the last few seconds are always the worst.