IF SHE COULD.

TWO PATIENTS IN A LOCKED WARD OF A PSYCHIATRIC WARD IN 1971

I could slit the thin knife
along the inside of my arm
get the right artery
and SPLATTER
blood like some
Biblical flood,
Yiska says.

I sit beside her
in the locked
ward's lounge.

It's warm, cosy
and she's toying
with an idea
but no knife thin
or otherwise.

Just her thin
red painted
fingernail
moving down
the inside
of her arm.

I watch intently.

Will she scratch
herself a slit?
I muse.

Her pink nightgown
sans belt
opens up as she
uncrosses her legs.

Glimpse thigh
pass my eye.

Slowly slit it,
she says,
open up like
a red flower.

The red fingernail
makes an indentation,
but no slit.

Her other arm,
bandaged,
has a recent attempt
of slitting-
some guy
from the male ward's
razor blade borrowed-
should have seen it spurt,
she says,
as I gaze
at the bandaged arm,
shot across the room
like a line of red,
f**k you, the guy said.

Yiska fingernails
a line deep as she can,
pressing down hard.

Slit you b*****d nail, slit,
she says.

Through a gap
in her nightgown's fold,
and legs moving
here and there,
I spy a sight of pubic hair.

I look away;
see the emptiness
of her deep eyes,
where a soul
or mind is wounded
and silently cries.