Kelsey Ann Kerr
PERFUSIONIST

I wear my love for foxgloves
on my digits, nibble on each
to slow the fibrillations.

I eat their purple freckled ends
till nausea overtakes me
with the halo I see each person in.

My father had purple freckles, too,
and any time a heart at work exploded
he’d come home with pink shoes.

Kelsey Ann Kerr has a great interest in loss: holes both metaphorical and physical of the heart, holes in life left by the loss of parents, cauterized by love. She teaches writing composition at the University of Maryland and American University and holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Maryland. Her work can be found, or is forthcoming, in Slippery Elm Literary Journal, Stirring: A Literary Collection, New Delta Review, Burningword Literary Journal, Mezzo Cammin, and The Sewanee Review, and The Atlanta Review, among others. Her poetry also has been nominated for Best of the Net 2017.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #20.