there is a fine line between

poverty and destitution

a line so thin

a thread   a hair or breath could divide them

yet most people would see either side as failure

but then

a failure is what you make of it

for me   it was a slow free fall of choices

because i was the outsider to everything

now in my old age and after all my losses

i a leper’s leper lie in a cave

where

i watch my daughters’ bellies

swell from my final shame

which came robed in a purpled darkness