A Battered Woman

The me that is has disappeared
from the public eye despite
that I am there, choosing to
display my temporarily altered visage.
Because my face now has responded
to a clumsy accident it appears
battered and bruised. The inflammation
that resulted after a carefree spring
stroll on a forest path veered in
the wrong direction when my
boot wobbled upon a tree root 
toppling my surprised body
to propel my face violently upon
the forest floor has resulted in
those who view me having themselves
an inflamed perspective on who I
am, for as an unaesthetic caricature
of how I now present, I have
become in suspicious minds 
the very embodiment of civil
shame, a  hapless victim of
spousal abuse, a battered woman.