solicitous,
the dark squeaks through,
sinks in the holes
in the lungs—the worms
found her too.

appendages of the hands
become mushrooms
grown from the soil of old hysterias
to sate the browning mind,
the eyes no longer do.

in the caricature of her boots,
the prints left in frenzied twos
are auxiliary to the compounds
of blues
that do not do

anymore than the supercilious
breath she left above ground
when she was twenty-two—
latent now in a grave
where the light can’t produce,

but the heart still beats.