"the girls"

The mask swallows

“the girls” whose ideas of fairness and humility

Are disguised under the unintelligible act of chatter

And the commercial language of shoes and clothes

Mark them as swallowed.

“the girls” have masks well-learned and well-liked,

But soon forget the difference between

The swallowed havens of voluntary darkness and of light

This tavern holds no ventilation and soon suffocation

Follows them in the recesses of the throats of chatter

Of the political powers that shovel inefficient excuses

Further down until digestion is tasteless but tolerable

And “the girls” wonder when they will no longer be young

When the mask will swallow them whole

Becoming the inaudible chatter

Of those who never listen and soon forgot “the girls”