The Strength of Anna

 
Her dreams are stitched, torn by fetal tissue
though she only blames herself.
She is hermitic; her own thick eyelid
and she knows this is more revealing than the quivers
in reddened, muddy ditches.

Her fingers are closer together
and her shoulders slouch into her chest
as she huddles over her cooling cup;
she relates somehow, to the skin separating
from the rest of the once warm tea.

She pours the red tea down the dirty sink
that's neglected like everything else.
She hasn't bled for months now.


She decides to take a bath after hacking at the grime,
her spindly bones expose a newly protruding gut;
She almost raised a smile with her shoulders.

As she sleeps, her fingers coil to the tendons' natural tension
as she opens herself to the night.
She hasn't slept so good for a long time.



The morning wades through her curtains
and as it nudges at her shoulder
it fills an empty tub of pills
nestled in her coiled hand, then kisses her belly
as it leaves.