her chance

Bursa, Turkey

the woman on the metro

with a burned leg - you remember her clearly
how she sat after dragging her bad leg

into the compartment
this image of her
alone
cold
scared
in pain
how did it happen? why is she alone?
on a cold night in a flimsy sweater

her skin below the knee
running to her ankle
all burned away
exposing blood red lines

her abstract expression
her sacred scared distracted face
watching night fly past windows
where blue televisions and children eye each other

how she kept going
on the metro past a stop
where the expensive private hospital on a Roman
hill gleamed its extensive intensive pensive care
ward and her treatment was delayed
forgotten useless
here

because she is poor
so she stayed in her seat
anxious now feeling her pain
wondering where she would go
where she would end up this night

as a stranger studied her anxious passive 
expression feeling burns, violent burns
inside sensations fire and heat
nerve impulses darting through

along sensory
channels where signals blocked by
neurotransmitters shut down
her chance