The woman is perfected.
Her breath

Slows as oxygen mixes with oven gas,
A collision of thoughts as her death reveals

The life that just could not go on.
Her body

Collapses to the floor;
We have come so far, it is over.

Her children's silent dreams, a white towel,
Buried in the crease

Under their door, salvaged lives.
And a child

Forty years later locks the bathroom door
Thinking life isn't worth the pain

Dropping the butter knife
Repulsed at the red pearls formed at her wrist.

She joins her father in the living room,
Staring blind at the TV.

She is used to this sort of thing.