A Draped Shadow Poem by Viki Richards

Like a curtain that falls after a show,
the black curtain falls over skin normally shown.
Talent, confidence, beauty shadowed by the shadow they are draped in.
You can't wear that.
You can't act like that.
People stare, I stare back frightened by their interest.
21 hours of flying, you are no longer in the 21st century,
who says time travel is a child's dream.
It is a women's nightmare.
Normality is sacrilege.
Lies whispered so brutally they are turned into law.
White the color of purity,
reaches out, clawed hands dripping with the thick shame of the fairer.
Two eyes look forward, painted to perfection, screaming their injustices.
21 hours of flying, sweat drips from brows, kissing the sand.
Kissing the hand that feeds them, the hand that drapes them in shadow.
The shadow feeding on their cries, cries swallowed in the sand.
In the sand where they are laid down, six feet closer to were they have lived their whole life.