for a girl in trouble, 1951
‘Shame.’
Use this word when you speak of love.
A man of cloth will come.
Your new home is among brides.
Deny
the child inside you is the child you dream at night
and when they cut short your hair,
watch the cuts fall
like the soft fur of an animal
held still by threat.
Find a pale rose climbing a wall
and consider yourself
smaller now
than even a thorn.
In your starched uniform, step into a nameless stream.
Feel the coldness between your thighs.
Say aloud:
‘In this life I am drowning.’