We sit, splintered against skin:

hieroglyphs spouting complex symbols

from untamed mouths; bodies

perspiring pits, dropping brows,

salting welted wounds;

 

Trying desperately to be brave,

behave in ways we have always been seen,

glean the truth of who we are,

what we’ve become,

what we do, what we’ve done;

 

wrestling Rottweilers,

unmeshing masquerades,

bending back barbed wire bare handed,

trying not to get too scathed;

 

fashioning limp limbs,

ringed hands, sweaty palms

into loose ledges; edging

tentatively, towards edges;

 

and cradling, somehow, each other -

sisters, brothers in arms, at brinks;

chiselling steadily at our chinks.