Her drawn on eyebrows
will stay put with setting powder
until the blaze crawls up her body.
She had drawn herself with flames
at her feet in her sketchbook many times.
She first knew danger as a child.
She wore it like a stolen dress.
Precocious children are often alone.
Margaret said, Give yourself
to a desperate army. Become a woman,
a man, a sword, a mirror. Use every word.
Quickly.
Only portraits survive, so where
is that voice coming from?
She is forever entering a room.
Inhaling the cusp of capture.
Defiance to beauty to dust.
