Character Study

Character Study

Character Study

Her self-esteem sleeps under leopard print,
herb-like and shivery as ghost-ships.
She dreams of sitar music and tree surgery
but wakes up wanting to be used

by the dawn boys, the brethren, the doe-like patrol
who can muss up her tights by the stockade
and make her feel dead. She feels responsible
for devolution in all of its forms –

perforated aspen trees, halcyon rapes,
maladjusted skateboards for the elderly.
She feels damned yet she’s benighted
with puissant hydroplanes. It’s like watching
Joan of Arc cut herself with Bic razors

but my compassion is hardly benign.