Serena Malcolm

“I’m sorry for your loss.”
She smiles at me,
One of those ones that doesn’t quite reach the eyes,
I watch the flick of panic as she fights to keep the guise,
“But it’s like death and taxes.”
The plosive headers shred the air like shots fired,
The bullets of levity sear into my sorrow,
Is it ignorance or cruelty?
My brain can’t quite follow, can’t quite reconcile,
And it takes a while,
Grated raw with grief and six months of fitful sleep on sofa cushions not fit for sleep,
Death and taxes: two guarantees,
But I posit a third:
People will always find a way to flip you the bird,
Twist the knife,
Rub salt into the wound,
People will always find a way to be cruel,
But in the time that it takes for my body to register the blows
– Shell casings slowed to Matrix tempos –
My mind already knows to compartmentalise the pain,
It’s become so very good at that game,
Because people, I find, are all the same.
So, I mirror her smile,
Knowing full well she won’t notice mine doesn’t reach my eyes either,
I say, “Death and taxes indeed, huh?”
And I make a mental note, and I tuck it away;
She is not an ally. She is not safe.
In this world nothing is certain, except death and taxes.
And the empathic failures of the human race.