What the Truth is Worth
by Lisa Caloro

  1. These are not confessions, they are bone
    2. 					bled truths,
								they are words trapped 
								in marrow that burn you
								alive if left unsaid.
					They are barn-burners, house-wreckers, black
cigarettes holes left in your mom’s new couch 
					after nodding out.  


  2. They are dog-stranglers,  son-smackers,   the car flipped
    3. 
																in a field 
																as you flee, 
						a bleeding child in your arms.


  3. They are infidelity held in your mouth,
    4.  
												a sour tongue,

  4. the girl hit, closed fisted, in tenth grade homeroom.
    5. 

				I’m free with my truths 
					so others feel safe to tell theirs.


  5. A wounded world gapes behind the construct
    6.  
										of admissible truths
											It undulates like knife accidents 
				viewed through tears,   begs us to return,        
								beckons in the dreams we wake from alive,

  6. gasping, looking around.
    7. 
							You do not seek relief;  you unpack
															the bloody lunch, 
															still twitching, eye

  7. the unhinged gates of heaven. 
    8.  
                                         The almighty absence is a cool breeze

  8. rattling useless latches.
    9. 
				You settle into the firepit, 
					cover a blanket of flames,       un-

  9. pray for forgiveness.
    10.
Packingtown Review – Vol.14, Fall 2020

Lisa Caloro teaches college, writes, and bar-tends in a small Catskill Mountain town. Her poems have appeared in Evening Street Review, The Carolina Quarterly, and Slant, among other publications.

  1. Lisa Caloro
    God’s Replypoetry