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LATITUDES, 3rd EDITION

Poetry

What We Don't Recover From
By Laura Burkhart

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When her teenage son died my friend ran 
up thousands of dollars on her credit cards 
not shopping for clothes or household 
effects or even Caribbean cruises to fill 
 
the hole in her heart. It was calls to hot line
psychics. What did she need to know? Who 
could possibly reassure her when she knew 
something was terribly broken and would 
 
never be made whole? Her husband paid
the credit card bills, including amazing 
exorbitant interest, and she promised 
promised, cross her heart and hope to--
 
why wasn’t she the one taken? But her 
compulsion, this grief, made her reach 
for the phone again and again…maybe 
this psychic, this time, would provide 
 
the balm she needed for that raw pain
the ache that never went away. 
 
Here is something I never told my friend: 
when her son was in the last stages beyond 
the time he could safely drive, he ran 
my son off the road. He never even saw 
 
the Harley in the right lane when he turned. 
My son, same age, better reflexes, made it 
to the sidewalk before he toppled over 
and cursed at the stranger who turned 
 
the corner, two red lights receding 
in the darkening, then darkened, night. 

​
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