Vol 1 No 1 2007
Agoraphobe
The woman in the cubic room will draw
her pointy knees up to her chin and fold
her arms into a knotted bow. Because
the room’s too small, she’ll bend to hold
her head against the lowering ceiling.
Her neck is arced, her spine a convex curve.
Her balance fine. Madame la Guillotine.
Her feet, too big for boots, her toes reserved
to flattened arches beneath her fetal weight.
The cubic room allows her oxygen
but little light. These hours past too late
for saving grace or plaintive cry and then
she shifts, not quite a shudder in the dark,
a lift of facial tics, her plangent smirk.
Tanis MacDonald