Called inside by the arrival of the truck,
newspapers
She will deliver
to hundreds of smug homeowners
knowing nothing of her struggles.

She turns
makes eyes
thrusts out her hips lewdly and smiles,
at a man rapidly putting supplements inside the fold
like everyone there is,
though he takes no notice.

She wonders when she lost them,
the men, and occasionally, women
who flocked to her after the divorce.

Is it her frayed stringy pink hair cut short?
Rough features developed
in a life with such sharp edges
burdensome weights,
a yoke
cutting deep lines into her face,
crow’s feet next to each eye
swollen moons under them both
built of rising in the middle of the night
for years unrelenting.

She drives endlessly through nights so black
Gilgamesh would not have survived,
and Demons
run to more pleasant surroundings.

Looking at the neat houses smelling of money,
ordered lives,
small farms
silent,
peaceful,
so near,
though felt only with the repetitive motion
shoving newspapers into boxes,

confining her
squeezing
sucking
chewing on her substance
the little girl who used to roam free,
siphoning out her existence,

scrambling for small coins
just enough
to do it yet again
the next harsh black night of the soul.