Vis-à-Vish.

She rides taxis for free
through government subsidy
talks to strangers when
She is supposed to
sleeps uneasily
Has forgotten about another girl’s
scandalous one night stand because
Earth’s signature spin delivered her
Spiralling through the night half cut
To the
“It’s how we’re drinking” scene

She receives the sympathy of strangers
Drinks copious cups of tea
Dreams uneasily
Carries memories around in sound bitten press statements
is
absent from the archival image of a station wagon and its makeshift awning
her form filleted in a
knife exhibited
her anonymous contribution
an admonition
from foreign shores as to the
inappropriate apparition of
serious crime in
other people’s holidays -
long hair trailing forlornly through the aperture of a hiker’s tent ten years earlier notwithstanding
It’s obviously how we’re camping

It’s how she’s writing
long legged words striding out in bare skin
It’s
how she’s reading
Head bowed as if her mouth works in silent prayer asking for it
It’s
how she’s too young and too stupid and her skirt is too short
Or she’s old enough to know better
She’s simply not helping herself or she’s walking home alone
When obviously she shouldn’t
She’s just a crazy cat woman gone missing
Some poor old lady attacked in her own home
Some saintly teacher screaming in an isolated rural classroom
Some burka figure in yet another war zone
Or perhaps
She’s
Just
A
Whore.

Stoned silence
washed out evidence spilling into the shower plug-hole
words served up in whispers
just a necessary intonation
dressed demurely as a warning
Exploited
Serving it up in literary form
one
more
sentence
One
more
name that’s gone on the list
Aestheticising violence
Subject
Subjected to scrutiny
Giving the deed
perennial relevance
We look you not quite in the face.
We say
I remember her name
As if
She remains: A statistic; defined in the past tense

Your imprint
where you sat, once
has lifted,
your image remaining
unchanging
from pixels pushed into position.
At a distance
you are almost moving
-my eyes slit
I turn my head,
refuse to see you
through periphery’s dynamic lens
unless you shift:
thus, you slide through memory,
as I prefer it.

It is unfortunate
I now see you
lucidly
shadows lending clarity
to that last encounter.