Rula

Don’t look at me
with your how-did-that-happen face,
all feathered fake,
mocked and melted –
reflecting futile damp looks
through synthetic and tangled lengths.
It’s your hunched shoulders,
rounded to knees
bent covered, misshapen and strained,
that give away your terror;
but it’s the waning tremor, retreating dark and raspy –
later balanced gingerly,
gently swallowed,
stuck wincing in the throat –
neither way out very appealing
and so carried with you
down in the mouth,
disconsolately dank and buried,
recoiled
with each soft flow of saliva past it –
that betray your confusion.
Unsure how it happened,
knowing it’s of no consequence
after all
how it – or anything – happened
or happens
ever.