Love/Ashes

She’s given over to the dust

she’s let them hold her arms,

let them peel back her layers

let them inject what they would…

four months of stone grown fat

in her belly

before she vomited it out for them,

behind the bleeps and bings and squeaks

of rubber-souled shoes

on bulk government linoleum;

They tell her to be calm,

but she hasn’t ever been calm before

so she hasn’t acquired the taste for it

she’s given up

she’s given over

she’s given over to the dust

and all she’ll ever love

is ashes.