She exists on
chemical miracles,
and talks out of tubes
Made from smoke.
Hearing the siren,
she wades in pools,
though summer's gone in
spades, and she
waits for refuge.
They fish her out in
autumn.

But, tired of heeding the
warning, she turns
back, eyes
losing focus on anything
but the immediate. She burns
her eyes on place-holders,
tells herself that better
was the world for
artificial flavor. She takes
the scent in her mouth
and waits, prays,
miracles propelling the
rate at which she declines.

She takes the turn,
and gone is the burn
of city streets in summer.
All she sees is gray.
Her eyes, small,
cry for the quiet
but her mind has made
much of what there is
little. And she lies
in her sheets, silent,
praying for better lovers,
and pocket money
with which to stop the burn.
She thinks
she's gone to sleep, but
wakes in time for supper.

And drifts off, waiting,
life's taken pity on
her. She's gone and made
herself a fool, scratching
at the floor, she screams,
miracles are in short
supply and the chemicals
she's invented herself on
burn in the summer sun.
And autumn, she wades in
pools, praying not for the
net that pulls her out.

And then she invents
herself on new lies, noble
she is, telling everyone she knows
that miracles are short-cuts,
and that chemically, she's
all right. She's gone
and made herself respectable,
she's a wonder, she is.
And her invention wavers
under the weight of chemical
miracles, to which she turns to
revitalize the lies. And she's gone
and made herself a slave to terror,
eyes cast suspiciously on the sun,
hair's going gray.
And by autumn, she's been
cleaned from pools, in which
she wades.