She's finished with the cigarettes; I marvel

how she managed it. A forty a day

inveterate, a Marlboro-mad

maverick who craved not only nicotine

and the repertoire of motions from hand to mouth

and back again essential to devotions,

but had augmented the habit

to flatten flames that flared within

by applying lighted fag-ends to stubbornness

of skin; to steady flight and cushion

falls and obviate oblivion;

to moderate mercurial that can't

be curbed by Lithium. She caught me glancing

at her arms for pale uneven patches,

rolled her sleeves and turned

the palms, her burns exchanged

for slashes; the scars of broken beer glasses, scores

of jewelled and jagged edges, brooches,

blades and coloured plastics,

crampons spiking every crevice.

At the weekly self-harm classes they will sterilise

the weapons with a sigh at further damage

and an eye upon infections.

She always was a maverick and declines

the antisepsis for the thrill of fraying fabric, the joys

of sexual intercourse without

the prophylactics.