and when she falls
she might break like glass;
a winter's gale could
raze her to ash

she walks in summer,
with floral eyes
that wilt far too often
to be any real disguise

her skin too perforated
to remain whole each year;
bury her in November,
to rise vampiric and clear

at easter, nail her and
her fears to wooden boards,
so she can pass the heatwave
and not sit distraught

if she should tumble
falter, catch her breath,
remember it is autumn:
she hasn't many left

every decade a phoenix:
flame-born and alive,
but a few years on drowned
by an ocean inside.


*© Tara India.