She walks the heaven-shadowed earth,
A sheltered child, she clings to the stone
hanging from her hard, muscled lung.
The luminous soles of her feet seem
Neither glad nor weeping as the
Laughter gives a belch-like creep.
She walks the heaven-shadowed earth,
Touched by delighted fingers stroking
A breast, a thigh, a lip bruised by a
Child wearing a surgical rubber glove.
With apathetic tongue, she crushes a bird
Trapped in the corner of her lunar mouth.
She walks the heaven-shadowed earth,
Stripped of her cotton shield and spear,
Alone with the blue and yellow rains
That soak the pale, paper skin she
Rips from to write her name in blood,
As the winter bones scatter praises.
