photo: Christchurch, after the February 2011 earthquake. This scene vaguely reminded me of a photo by Lee Miller, ‘Portrait of Space, 1937’: do your best to avoid feeling pity for the most vulnerable, they can sense it and they resent it.
she did not like misery
that was laid in her gaze
she preferred the warrior hostility
of brave adventurers
when she scratched the leatherette of her dusty armchair
she remembered that once
she had defied the gods