Naked before the mirror, her limbs Bent in wilful
directions. She was a misshapen tree, bent

by a bomb blast in some forgotten war, misshapen
but surviving in the ruins of a bombed out town

in a ruined land with a name impossible to spell.
Like the victim of a witch’s spell one leg pointed

left, the other pointed right pulling her opposite
ways. Her life was a circle, a gravitational pull

to wayward rotation. Men caught by her centrifugal
spin queued in rotation to see her flicker matchstick

shadows on the bedroom ceiling, flickering
like the wings of a bird in a locked room.