She stood beneath ancient arches,
halloed by lamplight, a slender,
girlish body and in her in her dark,
doe eyes a memory of terror that
had left her silent and mad.
Forsaken by her family, a flotsam
in the sea of life, she had ended up
here in a place of abandoned lust.
The price of her body, cheap, but only
the vilest wanted her, cigarette burns
on her arms bore witness of their fear
of innocence they couldn’t touch.