Trade Off

Glasses hanging
off a chain.
The poet chants.
Her china white hair-
heroine white hair
mixes with the lilac
pashmina that wraps
her shoulders.

Girlish long hair
recalling a college self.
Frozen white hair
encases her.
Unspent passion,
overworked into poem.

Pain, angst, murder
has worn out the cuticle.
Her life contained
solely in her mind. Thoughts-
these mothers of sweet forms
turn her hair stark raving white.

Making love or committing murder
in poems will not get you a baby
or put you in jail,
but it weighs the soul
with a debt
that must find its balance.

©️annie fahy 2017 in The Glass Train