Swan Lake

She had elegance and poise

… on the surface at least.

A deceptive calm;

swanlike.

Beneath,

 a desperate struggle,

against undercurrents

known only to her

and others in the same water.

She wasn’t sure if the water

was too hot,

 or too cold.

Neither did she see the shore;

she couldn’t see it...

yet she seemed, to her friends,

to walk there,

with an air of confidence;

pristine in appearance.

To face the outside world

she boiled pans

to wash

her clothes

by hand.

To hide from her inner world

she wrote,

poetry,

and she read,

but never the mail;

those words would crumble

her fragile veneer.

Still, unopened,

they remained a malignant threat,

silently growing.

She had paid,

hard earned money;

planned,

for times such as these.

Insurances; protection plans;

vaccinations

 against the virus of poverty,

but she hadn’t planned

on being trapped

by the so-called

welfare state.


There was never any immunity.