APATHY
Cheryl T. Strauss (Cumming, Georgia)

The lithe and numbing emptiness
steals slowly past a battery of guards.
I live in a shoebox full of wounded puppets.
I claw at slick walls.
My words fall flat and empty as lies.
Who can fail to notice?
I frolic
wreathed in pink ribbons of sloth,
a pretty picture.
Boredom winds its lethal vines round my heart
and I smother in its vacuum.