Ages ago they called her old.
But there she was, walking the same street
each day. So they changed the time-scale,
calculating her age as with forests,
in centuries. Yet she stood
in the same spot each evening,
black as a citadel
towering, cavernous, charred,
and out of it the words that teemed in her
against her will, unwatched,
endlessly flapped and screamed,
while those that returned already
perched beneath her brows
shadowy, set for the night.