Rina

She used to faint, her hair
            flapping beside her, eyes
spinning back through her head.
       She grew an eating disorder like
a germ in a test tube, or a baby.
             Never said what was in her
soul, but left her pink lips
       prissed forward at us, to guard her.
Then she got thinner, till she was a slick
            question mark in a long dress.
At every stage, the pattern in her face
                                               faded more.

I saw her on the arm
            of a train operator. He was all
apologies and watches. Eventually
            she drew up a chair at the office herself
and went to work. She never missed a day.
                                               Then a shadow
drew down behind her eye.
She woke one Monday, and could not see
                                   through both her eyes.
They said
            a shadow has drawn down
behind this eye.
                        I saw her the next week at a party.
She didn’t mention it.
            Her eyes were just as big,
                        and bare, and blue as I remembered.