The Girl in the Frame (revised)

Innocent stranger,
Indeed, you bloom around gills and fall
beneath the radar under a sky dripping with
illusion

the woman rocks her child to sleep
and a scarf drifts over the rubble of her features
her torn up life the ruins she now lives in
walls crumble as pepper dust drying out

the wheels grind away
the teeth she was left with
she invites her friends
in public but the chairs were
burnt by the soldiers for firewood

the night she lost her roof
the planes fly overhead
louder than before
the rain on mother’s big bed
and the lines down the walls
where the water runs

she lives thus in the public mind
takes dogs out for walks
leads them out of the trap
and into the summer

the illusion kept her between
four lines guarding the
boundary of her thought
the gates of reason
closed until the return
of the florists and the bell ringer