Spiked words
Carefully driven
Beneath her finger nails
Barbed even

Black & white Polaroid
Tucked behind the mirror
At an angle
Jaunty
I guess they’d have called it
If ‘they’ had ever bothered
Visiting her bathroom

I think if you were genuine
I’d be intimidated

I think
If you'd seen it
That you wouldn’t have
Asked
No really – I believe
That you have a sense
Of how the scar
the shadow
the blemish
came into being
By his hand
that night

And so you choose
distance over
a tactile
filmic hug