** note: this piece is best read on desktop or by flipping your phone to the side to view the full screen**
after Terrance Hayes and Neil Gaiman
can I blame his blood for anything? my sick humor, my rage, my peeling skin? / he
complained of pain in the knees. back. ankle. wrist. / and it is true, his blood did
kill him / pulmonary embolism / he walked with a leopard-print cane (I still have it) / he did not
write a will / another doctor asks about family history / asthma, diabetes / it is time to create
my own will, soon / it will simply say: give my books to the comrades. look after the
cats — thanks. / let the family argue over who will keep my cane (like I had to) / but on this path,
who will be left to argue? who will be left to pass this inheritance of dust on to? / are you
somehow alive in the toenail fungus you bestowed upon me? maybe you still step when I walk.
Kaleigh O’Keefe is a gender outlaw and proud union member living in Dorchester, Massachusetts. Their poetry has appeared in Breaking the Chains: a Socialist Perspective on Women’s Liberation, Slamfind, won the PRIDE Poetry Prize in Passengers Journal, and is featured on indie music legend Ceschi’s album Sans Soleil. Kaleigh is a contributor and editor for Liberation News, a co-founder of Game Over Books, and hosts the First Fridays Youth Open Mic in Jamaica Plain. You can find them at www.kaleighokeefe.com.
image: Annie Spratt via Unsplash