Annie Ziyah would drink tea
but wrings her hands incessantly.
Hunched and bunched and bundled in her cardigan
she is the plague of panicked whispers behind pleasant conversation.
She is “what if?”; “what then?”; “this could go wrong!”
She is the worst conclusion jumped to
with a wheedle extra strong.
Eyebrows arcing over horn-rimmed lenses
Salt and pepper ‘do resembling avian garden fences
This sorceress of scandal wields her spells with
devastating zeal:
Raising pulses, stealing breath,
clothing stained
by seeping sweat,
memories wiped, voices silenced
over-ridden by ‘boom-boom-boom’.
her gristly grip gets hold.
You feel the suffocating room
close in around you and as the blackness swells-
you’re overwhelmed
Annie Ziyah sips her tea,
dips eyebrows momentarily
then raises them, a new disaster hatched.
She’s ready to fight the next match.
