she walked through the lazy river
feeling sorry for herself
pretending that the drops wetting
her lashes weren’t sanitized water
but the tears she couldn’t cry
she tried to run ’til she couldn’t
breathe but her legs were too
tired, like her eyes and mind
where had sleep gone?
she wished for its numbing
embrace, but knew that it
wouldn’t really let her forget
that easily — daymare would
filter through darkened dreams
—
she stood under the blazing sun
face forcibly lightened by stark
rays of solstice days spent in
toil and hard labour — she
worked with her hands, arms
lifted, tugged, strained to
point of elasticity as her bare
shoulders went raw in the heat
while she dispelled her daemons
and signalled slumber’s shores
of her arrival ere evening, after
finding blessed relief in dirt
sweat and sunkissed pain
through being too much i’ the sun
