LINNIE

Holes in her socks, her eyes holes in their sockets,
She's looking into hell, and peering out of hell,
A hell of what she was when she first met her;
Downhill her course, and down at heels her state.

Surrounded by fat cats and empty bottles,
She soaks, and claws her dignity
In savage, self-inflicting spoliation.

Monet is said to have been thought inhuman:
He tried to catch the change of paling color
In the complexion of his dying wife.

It may be pitiless to write this poem;
So be it--but she must set down her pity
To save her own humanity, to float above
Poor Linnie's zombied, self-raped corpse
As it goes down.