There’s a woman getting off a train.
Look in the mirror,
Check twice, and once again.
Her lips pink with pain
Full of her garden’s expression
She always lacked a green thumb
Bought dozens of white roses
Planted them in fall
Watched them
Fill with dew before sun
And crust when day left the sky
She smiles a bit at her reflection
But her small mouth
Make smiles look like pinks painted brown
Her fingers brace the small of her back
While she leans against
The crowd
She thinks she’s screaming, loud
But it’s only whispers
Catching on peoples’ sleeves
Passing by
Brushing off
And floating to the ground
Sinking in the pavement to the depths of more layers of dirt and bones
Maybe there were others who whispered the same things
Because if you lean down, low
Enough
You can her yell
“Mirror, mirror, who’s this you show me, now?”
On the empty walls she sheds her colors
So we can hope
It’s only the flickering light that makes her look this way
In the dark
Inside blank walls
In the silence
Against the air
She’s beautiful
Now though
She drops
Away
Arms first into the train tracks
Rickety
Rickety
A pool of white roses
Rickety
Rickety
Scorned black
By what seemed too beautiful
Is forever more
Under train tracks