Battered behind Dark Glasses

By: Michael Lee Johnson
September 10, 2008

An otherwise beautiful lady

with eyes matted and closed

is not exactly sleeping.

The trouble goes deeper,

the doctor has a laser

light drill penetrating her eyes

that have turned thunderstorm

black with smudges of red and pink.

She tells herself this will never

happen again, there will be no

rebirth with him.

In idle hours she self-nurses

a cave of hurts. The lights are off;

her eyes are bruised and burning.

In the morning, still in bed she looks in a mirror;

her face thickened with puff & irony-she weeps splinter sounds.

Above her head on the lamp desk the alarm clock keep ticking,

across the room, around the corner, the refrigerator keeps humming.

The man who had his way is dark in her,

like distant echoes embedded in a memory or shadow.