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.