A Cross-eyed Woman

Her eyes keep
the carcass of her beauty.
Philosophically,
a soul is more charming.
Practically,
people don’t prefer to it.

It’s modern to say,
“No dowry."
Yet, a wedlock without a gold-lock
is rare here.
Poverty padlocks her dreams.

Midlife sun burns.
Hope level falls.
Her snakehead fish sinks
into the black mud.

Petrified
by the dark beard of moral fascism,
her eloping thoughts retreat.
She buries her biological needs
in her womb.

First published in The Literary Hatchet.