Two weeks now since she stopped going to work.

The phone gleams, silent as spilled blood. Skeletal remains

around the sofa indicate that she has run out

of children. Hunger is in constant motion – dogs outside

fighting each other, trees under attack from birds,

houses on fire. She peels the skin off her arms

and eats. Underneath she is decomposed, a walkway

for larvae and houseflies. Her memory is a constant drizzle,

a devouring of every face she comes across

until they resemble her first meal – the cab driver

who took her home. Alone, she reads books

again and again to remember the taste of living brains.

She holds on to a cloven copy of Ulysses

and chews her fingers until her tongue – torn taste

buds and gangrene – curls like a fetus around the bone.