Susan Darlington
The Tincture
She removes the glass phial
from her dressing table drawer
and measures a droplet on her tongue.
Yesterday’s words of affection
slide down her throat: ‘with love’,
‘fond regards’, ‘all the best’.
These dead black hieroglyphics she boiled
off the bottom of page after page;
peeled away their rotten wooden limbs
And poured them into a container.
She uses them as transfers
to escape from her isolation;
She uses them to evade the hollow
eyes of a distant past that beckon
her to join them in the final release.
Page(s) 55-56
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