Truth by by Beverly Rycroft

– From A Private Audience

There was a party
and the grown-ups
sat on the stoep
and drank whisky
and gin. We played
hide-and-seek.
You chased me, I ran
down the steps
and crushed a glass
under my bare foot.

In the car, a tidemark
of blood soaked through
the tight white bandage
our mother wrapped.
From the front seat
you whispered,
Sister, the doctors
will fix you soon.

But the splinter
had already entered
my tiny capillaries,
borne against the
current to lodge like
a stick in the left
chamber of my heart.