Her small pink tongue probes the object
violating her mouth, twines the tube
sunk in the black of her throat,
the way it might explore a tooth
gone bad: insistent, obsessive, unable
to find a place of rest. She has lost
the battle with the straps that fetter
her wrists to the bed’s frame.
Forced to concede to survival
by submitting to life forced upon her,
she pitches her gaze about the room
the way birds trapped indoors
will fling their bodies against the glass
in search of an exit into open air.