A City Lay In Ruins Poem by Stevie Smith

The faceless-ageless friends didn't find her hiding.
Instead there was a special gift,
the ability to hide in creases of time.
It hung there motionless on the wall as it had minutes ago.
But none of the minutes had gone anywhere.
Everything seemed to stop.
Whole worlds were silent as nothing moved, not even time.

Frozen like dead bodies,
expressions of a moment were carved into faces.
They were bent into even more uncomfortable positions.
Reminding all ghosts of a city that lay in ruins,
that they had tried to escape, that they tried to flee from the erupting volcano,
as it stayed smothered and covered in ash.

Time would never stop in this ruined world.
Alone like this, she examined her new face and her new body.
She wondered if she would ever rub past this mask.
It didn't feel the same.
She doubted it ever would again.