Poetry by Kerri Farrell Foley

       Darin Barry CC



Apple White

My throat exposed
Self-inflicted ink stains
A dotted line instructing
Just the right spot

RSVP on my back
In felt tip
This invitation to slice me open
See how deep my rotten goes

You are welcome here
Write me back
Silence is the greatest harm
You could do me

​

Iron

Bruises with no origin story
Corner of table coffee black
Slip in the shower blue
She doesn't remember
Maybe she should see someone
Let someone see
But there is always a stack of linen to work
Press creases from the pale
Check for stains
Stiff collars
Hanged up
Correcting deficiencies
Supplemental starch



Bergamot

You can't tell me
How to take my tea
Don't linger in doorways
That you can't remember what my mouth tasted like

You drew a line through the room
In paint and named it after me
Watched me trip over myself
Crossing myself
To get to you

You forced me to go first
Upper lip curled
More of a snarl than a welcome

Then we saw what I was
Held my head
And rinsed off my smeared war paint

You force fed me esteem
Eggs with garlic
Bergamot sweetened nonsense

When I backed into the wall
On your side
It wasn't you I was edging away from

You pressed a book into my hands
Don't lose focus
Sampled me square by square as I read

Then we rewrote the moral of the story
All lines blurred
All heads bowed all eyes closed

You pressed the issue into my flesh
I chose you
Something neither of us knew at the time

When I scaled up to your picque
Dizzy with pride
And tumbled all the way down

You took stories as gospel
Wrapped my wrists
In holy cuffs of patience

Then we committed crimes
My hips bruised
With your blue thumb prints

You took red pens to my early efforts
Said try again
Stripped me bare of all context

When I came to you with revisions
We tried again
Even as the climax was waning

You burned the thousand lines
Painted me black and white
Scribbled over the name of the self
Who forgot herself
That let you get to me

And I can't tell you
How long it's been
Don't forget to write
That I can remember what your smile looked like

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Kerri Farrell Foley is the founder and managing editor of Crack the Spine Literary Magazine. Her poetry and short prose has been published in Black Words on White Paper, Short Fast and Deadly, Flash Daily, and others. Her novel “In the Margins” was published in 2013.