Poetry:Poverty

She tears

the words

apart

into bite-

sized

chunks,

strangles

beats

desecrates

them into

soup

to feed

her children

of dreams

through cold

cold winters,

lost souls in

too silent

woods,

ax-wielders

with survival

on the mind.

She is

afraid

of the

repercussions.

The mind

is a concussed thing

and words

frost the windows,

kill the rabbits,

hang in the

branches,

reaching

down like

hands

for the

grabbing,

for the

praying,

for the

shaking,

constant

worrying

deafening.

She cuts

and cuts

and cuts

and still

the scraps

are barely

enough.

-JC