Many winters

It seems to me

That these sad eyes have looked

Into the dark heart of so many winters

When flesh was torn from bone

In a metaphorical sense

By a pack of young jackals

Leaving that young tender heart

Faltering on a precipice of becoming

That seemed entirely

Insurmountable

So now

All these years hence

Those memories

Summoned up by the encroach of autumn

Can only be carried silently

Like an untellable truth

Whose meaning would be lost

On those who never endured such difficulty

No way really to tell

Of all the heart endured

Of the emptiness and pain

That she tried to cover over

So inefficiently

Now there seems no longer any escape

So she must learn to live with all of this

Finding a way to make of it

Some form of art

For there really is no forgetting

And the emptiness that streches before her like an ocean

Seems to threaten a drowning

So all she can do is try to find

A way to breathe

Under water

In the midst of

Encroaching winter