A False Life Poem by Catherine Yen

A woman at the door
Scrubbing his clothes
Proved the man of no return
Is still hers
A pair of capable hands
Mother’s hands
Tortured hands
Rambling in the foam

The well-beings
In between giving and not giving
Between receiving and not receiving
Becoming a torrment

When the clock ticks
Against the pale ceiling
The ten millions eyes look down
At the dark room
The burden pressed the road at midnight
Into a screaming

She saw him in the mirror
With shallow grinning
She saw herself outside the glass window
Struggling to reach out the hands from the underground
A false life
Washing the heart with loofah
Sewing the wound with needle

In ice and fire
The betrayed become the indifferent
The indifferent become the distant
The distant become the callous
The callous become the forgotten
That night
She took a pot of boiling water
Poured on every plant he planted