Camouflage

Her gift for happiness was firmly anchored
in maniacal determination
to knock out tragedy, to protect from fear
her deliberate optimism.
To take refuge in hollow politeness
was her means of self-defense.
An excellent form of evasion,
her wartime camouflage.

For a so-called intelligent creature,
she felt full of stupidity
when wading the fluid frontier
between control and tyranny.

In her private world of shattered poetry,
schizophrenic fissures
between words and thoughts
spontaneously combust with nuclear energy.

She spins into clouds
of violence and death
and mystifying pictures
in the pigeonholes of her mind.
No need of lamplight to reveal
what the eye won’t see,
that nagging simulacrum of intimacy.