Everybody hurts

clotted blood matting locks of hair onto

a fragment of skull protruding from the gash –

sharp yelps of pain as the woman tries to

comb her whorl with dry-blood besmeared fingers –

she mocks the people on that train to London,

vexed as she cannot find her bearings –

her breath is rank with stale beer –

her man shouldn't have hit her –

Long agony amidst aghast people –