mikeham

She arrived carrying
her father's stevedore hook,
her mother's factory sewing machine;
a tattoo of her outcome: her torso minus head.
They knew her right away.
Hanging from their necks flourished
little amulets filled with the blood
of helpful agents who endowed
them with magical advantageous outcomes
for several generation.
They fingered their amulets as she put down her effects,
staring at her tattoo like a soldier in enemy territory;
demanding she confess to what she was,
she didn't understand;
requisitioned her hook and sewing machine:
one struck her with the hook
like he had done it before,
the other flung the sewing machine
at her the same way.
They left her for dead;
wrote her a postcard from an exotic local:

We set you up before you arrived;
come back your outcome will be the same.