A Southerly Change

I The trouble with me  She said Is I don't believe  I have a right To feel Like this What happened to me  She said  Is nothing Compared to what  Some people suffer After all  Is said and done I am alive  I live I love In my own way Compared to some people I am lucky So what right Do I have To feel like this The trouble with me  She said Is I feel besieged  Fears of self-indulgence  Encircle my small pain And make me doubt its truth   II   There  Somewhere there In her mind in her heart In her soul if she has one She holds onto her small sorrow Like a battered woman Holds on to the belief that she isn't mad Like an abused child Clings to the hope that she isn't bad   She clasps her small sorrow close to her breast Keeping it warm alive and blessed With her daily attention to its details   In the great scheme of things This global glut of cruelty This world wide web of wickedness Hers was a very small injury In memory In deed She feels That to place her pain alongside the h

The Crop   The voice cut through her daydream like glass through skin. Soupie caught her breath before it leapt from her mouth. The effort almost made her gag. Her companions glanced at her, their eyes cold and calculating. Had she made a sound they would have killed her, without thought or compunction. She avoided their looks. Even to break the separation could result in death. It was essential to stay inside oneself.  She slowly turned her eyes back towards the wall across the street, towards the window the voice had come from. A hand waved, slowly turning and twisting, like bleached kelp in slow, deep waves. Her hands twitched in unconscious response. A dim childhood memory of returning a wave, of the fascination of contact with a stranger, made her hand listen to a deeper voice than her fear of her companions. Thin and pale, the fingers waved and floated as though the hand was trying to catch the wind. Soupie tried to imagine the face of the person the arm belonged to and in her fa