In the eye of a low-slung moon
She sees the words.
They seep from her,
Staining her body and clothes.
They run a path never envisaged,
A promise of rages still to come.

By day, she deals in smiles and sacrifice,
Tapping out words – not her own –
In someone else’s files.
Chest stretched taut,
Her heart beats a different rhythm,
Mutating fingers into other words –
She never knows how they got there.

At night she is a country occupied,
Peopled by intriguing ideas
And fragmentary phrases.
Their clamour exhausts her,
As they rotate and gibber and writhe.

And the words keep tramping down,
Seeping into her pillow, her bedsheets,
Tattooing her body like moss,
The first lean stirrings
In her clear, unchosen path.

In the morning she will rise
And her liberated words will flow freely.