on the ward...

 
she set alight her dress,
then beat it out again...
her skin, as paper is,
charred and yellowing,

like headlines from a press,
long since smouldering,
which catch and flare to this
prophecy of pain...

  .............

they blamed it on psychosis...
"She doesn't know her mind,
or what reality is."
she knows her blistered hand....

and we who came to miss
the newsflash red with flame,
douse her legs with bandages,
smothering our blame...