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