pos·ses·sive

She faces the bowl of emptiness and
dips of regret; remembers what never was.

On the halfshattered screen of ·her phone she
contemplates the man whose vague promises once

spoke to her, as twinkling hopes in some
glossy firmament; she rationalizes the

inconsistencies; recalibrates ·her
perspective; smiles like the
first time she heard him:

He will make them all go away
all the ones not like me.

One by one they will all be
gone, picked off, shipped off
someone else’s problem now.

and she in ·her world,

soothed       unfurrowed
unencumbered     bewombed.

And only ·his
voice, ·his words,
and ·nothing else.