And as she stepped carelessly
Across the abyss
The pustulant past leapt up,
It’s gnarled, knotty fingers
Wrapped securely
Around her heart,
Dragging the organ deep into
The dark swamp of
Miscalculated risks and
Unmendable regrets.
Leaving behind a snickering fiend
That changed slippery smooth blood
To slush.

And As her lonely mind wandered to warmer,
Easier times, her throat tightened--- transition stage womb
During birth.
Through her veins, blood moved sluggishly and

in kind consideration, so did her
Metabolism.
The calorie burning machine
Pulled the emergency brakes.
Squeal. Shudder, shutdown. 

And As she huddled into her cryogenic coma,
Slush blood monster: inert, frigid twilight sleep for now,
eventually to wake and participate again, changed.

finally she gave birth to change--a natural death
Again and again and again and again.
CM 1995