She sits on her bed,
tired old spider in her crazy web,
black-sweatered belly
filling her lap.
Her cheeks puff and sag,
bearded with flaking layers of skin.
A hand scrabbles its way up from her lap,
nails flecked with bits of red polish, dried blood.
She combs her hair with her fingers and
begins the scratching,
her skin falling away in drifts of little deaths.
Under her clothes, a survivor’s body,
breastless and scarred,
surrenders, its veins broken.
She dreams that she lies on a stone
sun-hot and flat.
Her hard shell cracks and she crawls free,
splitting open a thin red thread.
