Inside Outside Poem by Morgan Michaels

She sat on the bed quietly reading a letter
Inside the room was sweaty and dark. Outside
it was bright and hot. Hoping it would get better
she read on. The birds sang a negligible reel

outside, while she half-listened to a flute on the radio
noodling through the sheaves of an accompaniment.
The letter never got any better. One by one, its leaves
slipped through her fingers onto the floor.

Done, she got up to go to the bathroom
and splash water on her face. Nice to believe
that what she decided was based on principle,
she thought, but she suspected it wasn't at all,

But rather on merest Need-like some old-time
marriages, which is a kind of principle, after all,
the mother of them all, the mother of all motives:
Maybe principle doesn't exist at all, she thought,

timidly, unallied to Need, as if the thought were a sin.
Or maybe it did. Anyway, this was not at all
the desired outcome, so she must flee, slip away,
never to be seen again.