At Odds & Loose Ends: A poetry Collection

In Return

I'd never heard her scream like that before

horrible, wild things that made the ears groan and

the stomach drop

She wailed about death and starvation

as if the world owed her something

She floundered around the room,

chafing her knees on the carpet and beating herself with

steady fists each time I told her no.

She was the first and I had hoped - the last,

because my ears were beginning to deafen themselves to

anything faintly compassionate—anything necessary.

I gave in. I always did. And still she cried

into her echo chambers with disciplined vigor

If I'd known her heart was broken,

her tears might have reached me past her teeth