her spinal column bent,
toward the ground, each day
a little more, although she tried
to prop herself up with some phrases
and quotes from learned books
and fabricated hints of greatness
and acceptance by her brilliant peers.
It was, she knew it too, to no avail.
And when the stoop had reached,
by mid-July, the very ground at last
she did the only thing now left to her,
she flung the excrements left by
the horses and the cows, and dogs
at passers-by, to show them she was there
and to be counted.She never rose again
and was condemned, for all eternity
to clean the streets of poo and leaves
the latter had come down in an attempt
to cover her and make her go away.
It was a pitiful existence, yes it was.