Her Face a Mask

His silence, her savior, the paramedics were carrying his body out, in her mind there was still a shout, but she knew he was dead, and in that there was no doubt, walls, floors and doors stained red, a bullet through his head, the abuse stopped, enough said, and stopping it was what it was all about. She watched the massive shape of her husband’s body go by, the image in her mind, taped, her sanity raped, but time would heal the wounds, she laughed silently, and she would not cry, she knew that someday one of them would die, her face a mask, her actions a task, and from her chains, freed, as the odor of death lingered in the stairs, as she suddenly released happy-tears, dazzling sunshine now covered the street, and every night, with comfort she would sleep.