Long and gentle (soft dusky pink)
A girl in a coffeeshop
Closes up, jagged like an oyster.
Her face blurred like a moonstone.
huddled, hunted, in massive tawny furs
(a memory, but raw as a freshly-flayed kill)
can’t feel, can’t breathe, drains away…
her ankles loll like broken necks
The girl in the coffeeshop
Keeps her chin level,
Talks tired and calmly: I’m not
Really crying, she says.