Usual was a smile
the one that enlivened animals
but when she didn’t
a dry crease between her brows
her eyes were poor
but she didn’t like sights in frames
she squinched to see
she said she liked her life
in an illusionary
kaleidoscopic pandemonium

On the left her nails grew long,
so long that they touched the floor
she used them like a cane
but they had grown nerves and minds
and they were flogged and ripped by
people with elongated lips and short eyes

Her right ones short
she painted with her right
she didn’t use a brush
because she shook when she held it

She had told me about
the beauty of the most elemental things
like the seductive fire and the sky
how much she wanted to paint them
but she had offsprings,
who she defined as neglected
outcomes of her desires
and she had to win them bread
and each a mouthful of brothe

She had once talked about cicadas
herds and herds of brown variegated cicadas patching the trunks
that had leaves fresh and salty as the ocean
sallow droplets of cicada larvae polka dotted on the ocher dirt

She had talked about her birthplace
the land she called holy
because it was sacred, inviolable, bare
and great whales of energies rammed and thrusted
bearing her
I was born in the prettiest hell I ever saw,
I didn’t mind burning at all, she said

But not in here,
I don’t want to die here
not with the fire and the sky still inside me,
She said.
?