In the Mental Hospital

(written for Redaccent's "Observational Expressions" competition)

The woman hides behind the jet-black
yet luminous, silky curtain
of her hair.
The room is silent.
She is like a swimmer stepped
from a pool of dark water
and dripping with grief.
I can only imagine how
the three of them held her down,
buried themselves inside her;
how they craved a taste
of that beauty, to slip
into the skin of something right.
I ache to comfort her, to tell her
something hollow and trite,
that something good must come
from every action. That must be
the source of the seed
that blossomed inside her
and gave birth to the son
whom she adores. Instead, later,
we will talk of weight loss surgery
and angioplasty while I stare
at the pear-soft skin of her hands,
the way they seem so supplicant,
folded in prayer
upon a plastic work bench.