Circumspection

I couldn’t say what it was
That made a little girl
Shut up.
Some are maybe born quiet.
Stuff slides off their stillness
Because it’s natural, not a process
Of internalising, cramming, keeping, and cherishing it
All. Becoming denser;
A black whole. A process
That began
With simple circumspection
And ends
With cannibalism;
The corrosive cargo has finished the voice and now swallows
You from the inside out – and it ends
With nothing.


22/11/03