JENNIFER ON ICE

A girl I once knew.

She carves graceful lines
and hallowed curves
on the TV screen.

A dancer dressed
in classical music
and sheathed in blades
of quicksilver,
etching scars
into a skin of ice;
ivory legs pumping;
small arms lifted high;
eyes full of green light;
body strong,
potent,
flowing.

The music stops.

She is her.
an imposter awakened,
escaped from a coma.

At sixty miles-an-hour
her head shattered glass
and spat blood
through a windshield.

Eyes full of memory
and red light.

She sits and watches
the swan within
the ugly duckling,
wilting in her wheelchair,
longing to bloom again.

She does not sleep.
She dies awake.