The twelve-inch needle stuck deep,
with my thinning skin sucked around it...

The Faith is mere mythology:
a siren song on a barren sea...

I sink beneath the sheets
and they are pressed...

I admit defeat.
I admit this ragged shawl...

Mother says
‘You look so tired...

wordless
worthless...

Bird girl
huddles by the gates...

That pale morning in the mud,
we crowded round a chasm...

Eyes peel to the pang-
with its beats...

The nothing new—
another verse and all...

I am the stream,
tripping down the trail...

I shall write of you no more.
But so alone...